Promoter: Jamie MacLaren
Co-promoter: Raoul Van Damme
Supervision: Cas Jorissen
Subject: When researchers investigate sprinting in organisms, they often choose to do so on flat, horizontal substrates. This can often provide maximal sprint speeds, but can be quite unrealistic for the likely performance of animals in their natural habitats. The complexity of a substrate (and, by extension, a habitat) may have a strong influence on locomotor performance. Unfortunately, habitat complexity is often described in the literature in a very vague manner, with broad and qualitative categories such as “open”, “arboreal”, or “heavily vegetated”. This can often lead to discussions on how useful these categories are for understanding or interpreting behaviour, ecomorphology, or ultimately evolution. Ideally, we could describe habitat complexity in a discrete, quantitative manner, offering continuous data for comparisons with performance or behavioural traits – this is the aim of this project.
In this project the student will: (1) experimentally construct a diverse range of substrates (from quite simple to highly complex); (2) digitise the substrates using state-of-the-art 3D scanning tools; (3) place different combinations of constructed substrates into an arena for experimentally determining lizard sprint speed; (4) calculate topographical complexity from 3D models and compare speeds with quantitative complexity of the substrates.
Student: A successful project will be realised by a student who has an interest in organismal biology and ecology. Guidance in all methods will be provided – no prior knowledge required. Student will require a FELASA (laboratory animal handling certificate). Familiarity with the R statistical environment will be beneficial, but not essential.