Wallace Coffee Talks - Summer 2019
23 July - 12pm - Zoology Museum
Does personality influence lumpfish interaction with salmon?
Lumpfish are used as cleaner-fish to control parasitic sea-lice in salmon farms. Although reports indicate the majority of lumpfish do not readily consume lice, some individuals exhibit high levels of cleaning behaviour. Assessing potential factors that influence individual variation in cleaning is important to improve farm efficiency and animal welfare standards. This talk investigates whether lumpfish personality effects the nature and extent of interactions with salmon.
Mice and deer and wild dogs, oh my! Technology shines a light on animal behaviour
Technological advances allow greater insights into animal behaviour than were previously possible. Modern biologgers featuring tri-axial accelerometers and magnetometers offer powerful insights into the fine-scale movement and behaviour of species, while passive RFID tags allow tracking of animals too small to carry GPS or biologging sensors. In this talk I will explore some of the insights that can be gained from these advances; namely determining mouse social interactions, quantifying fallow deer fawn activity patterns and using captive African wild dogs to develop behaviour classification rules for wild canids.
