MABLab

I grew up, as many do, fascinated by the life in rock pools and in the sea. I'm glad to say this became my career and I now get to study all these organisms in much more detail.

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My main interests are in behaviour: what do animals do, where do they do it, who with, and why? In my time I've worked on several topics including predator-prey dynamics, ecotoxicology, rhythmicity, chemical signalling... In all of these I'm trying to understand why animals differ in their responses to particular challenges. Furthermore, why are these differences consistent between individuals (i.e. these organisms are showing personality). I've used various methods to examine the biochemical processes underlying these differences, such as stress physiology, genomics and proteomics.

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But there are other questions I'm also interested in much more closely aligned with my interest in naturalism. How do animals pick their prey (and what do they do when they get picked?!) What chemical signals do they produce to alert each other or which might alert their prey? Can they weigh the importance of reduced feeding opportunities against the likelihood of being eaten? All of these are fascinating questions which can be very nicely answered on rocky shores, where we have complete ecosystems over short spatial scales.