Harry Marshall

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I am a behavioural and evolutionary ecologist interested in understanding the ecology and evolution of social animals, and using this knowledge to inform their conservation and management.  Specifically my interests include exploring how:

• the costs and benefits of sociality vary between group members
• individuals difference in behaviour, health and fitness and develop and are maintained
• these individual differences affect group- and population level patterns
• this information can inform the conservation and management of social species

The ecological, evolutionary and physiological causes and consequences of cooperative care in animal societies. In this research I am using the banded mongooses (Mungos mungo) at the Banded Mongoose Research Project, Uganda as a study system and asking questions such as:

• What ecological conditions favour greater individual investment in social and cooperative behaviour?
• How do early life conditions affect individual behaviour, reproduction and survival in later-life?
• What are the physiological mechanisms that influence individual differences in social behaviour and fitness?

The role of social species in Guinea worm transmission. This research is a collaboration with the Carter Center’s Guinea Worm Eradication Programme and the University of Exeter to establish whether baboons and dogs play role in the transmission of Guinea worm in south-west Ethiopia. The aim of this project is to identify any transmission pathways and allow the development of control measures.

How social foraging behaviour varies with environmental conditions? In this research I am using the chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) at the Tsaobis Baboon Project, Namibia and asking questions such as:

• How do individual foraging decisions adjust to differing environmental conditions?
• How do an individual’s social relationships affect their foraging behaviour?
• What an individual’s diet choice and specialisation on social group?