MABLab

I'm interested in which environmental factors are important in shaping animal behaviour, both natural and anthropogenic. 

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Within the marine environment I largely work in the intertidal. Here, over just a short spatial scale, we see a gradation of environmental conditions from one extreme to another: marine to terrestrial. Despite the environment itself gradually changing, the community structure changes stepwise with discrete zones of organisms. The organisms here - mainly algae and animals of marine origin - distribute themselves along the shore based on their ability to deal with exposure to air and to compete with others for the valuable space.

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The shore is therefore a really interesting place to examine how animals deal with all sorts of stress. Importantly, it can act as a guide to how organisms respond to anthropogenic impacts such as climate change. Since many organisms here are already doing everything they can to survive, they could often be vulnerable to the additional pressures we put on them. 

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Climate change can impact on temperature, salinity, water pH, exposure, and desiccation in coastal environments. Ecosystems here can also be exposed to pollution from coastal human settlements, particularly related to agricultural run-off or sewage (including pharmaceuticals), industrial effluents and thermal outflow, and contaminants originating from docks and shipping. Of particular interest to us are heavy metal toxins. These can have debilitating impacts on animal behaviour but the chemistry of metal toxicity (and bioavailability of the the toxins i.e. how much will actually be taken up and impact the organisms) is still an active area of research with many questions to answer.