Individuals within species show tremendous variation in physiological and behavioural traits. Over the last decade there has been a surge of interest in the ecological and evolutionary importance of this diversity, but the vast majority of this work has been performed on isolated animals. In reality, however, most animals - from insects to mammals - do not live in a vacuum, but instead live within complex social structures. Social influences may override links between traits that exist in solitary animals. Conversely, an individual's standing within a group may be an important factor generating intraspecific variation. In this talk I will review some of our recent work examining the interplay between social behaviours and metabolic traits within various fish species and how such links may be modulated by environmental factors.
Shaun is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health & Comparative Medicine and an Associate of the School of Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow, UK. He holds an ERC starting grant (2015-2020) with the project "FISHPHYS", focusing on fisheries-induced evolution. His research focuses on:
- links between physiology and behaviour influence life-history strategies
- trade-offs involved with foraging and predator-avoidance behaviours
- effects of environmental stress on animal behaviour
- scaling of metabolic rate with body size in organisms and its relationship to ecology.