PhD Studentship in The Call of the Wild: Solutions to Record and Understand Wild Animal Behaviour

About the Project

Project details:

The behaviour of animals determines their responses to environmental change and ultimately shapes whether populations persist or decline. Tools to record and analyse the behaviour of individual animals under natural conditions are therefore vital not only for fundamental research to understand why animals behave in the ways they do, but also for applied work to address urgent challenges in animal conservation and welfare. However, existing technologies have mostly been developed for use in controlled laboratory settings and are often unsuitable for field conditions. For instance, cameras used to monitor the behaviour of nesting birds typically require mains power or are too bulky to fit unobtrusively in nests without disturbing the occupants. Thermal imaging is also emerging as a vital tool for non-invasive monitoring of stress, but thermal cameras are typically expensive, bulky and power-hungry. Similarly, animal-borne microphones can provide vital insights into patterns of vocal communication and responses to anthropogenic disturbance, but are typically too heavy and bulky for most species, and have very limited battery life. Moreover, not only do we lack suitable hardware for data collection in the wild, but our ability to process and understand the resulting data suffers from major constraints. Here, advances in AI will be crucial, for instance by allowing us to recognise individuals on the basis of visual and vocal characteristics and automate the large-scale quantification of behavioural and physiological responses. 

The aim of this PhD is to combine the two primary supervisors’ expertise in behavioural field biology with engineering and data science approaches to develop and test tools for behavioural research and ecological monitoring. The Cornish Jackdaw Project – a long-term study population of wild jackdaws run by Alex Thornton – provides the ideal setting to test and validate methods before then applying them to field sites in even more remote locations such as Kim Hockings’ study sites in West Africa. The project will provide the student with unique experience, training and transferable skills in ecological research, engineering and data science. Given the urgent need for robust, affordable tools to evaluate behavioural responses to environmental change in animal populations around the world, we envision that there will be ample scope to commercialise the outputs of the project.  

Project specific entry requirements: Minimum 2.1 (or equivalent) degree in Zoology/Biology, Engineering or Computer Science/Data Science. 

Department: Ecology and Conservation  

Please direct project specific enquiries to: Alex Thornton: alex.thornton@exeter.ac.uk

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Funding Comment

Payment of tuition fees (Home), Research Training Support Grant £5,000 over 3.5 years

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