- About
- News
- Current Projects
- The evolutionary ecology of cognition across a heterogeneous landscape
- ObSERVE aerial surveys
- SeabirdWatch
- The distribution, diet, vulnerability of far-ranging pelagic-foraging seabirds to oil spills
- EIRwind – Understanding seabird vulnerability to offshore windfarms
- MarPAMM - Marine Protected Area Management and Monitoring
- The development of robust predictors of seabird behaviour at sea
- The Ecology of a Cryptic Game Species
- Dipper Ecology
- Developing a tool to predict the distribution of seabirds
- Developing and assessing a monitoring strategy for burrow nesting seabirds in Ireland
- How Wintering Waterbirds use Dublin Bay
- Eurasian Woodcock Satellite Tagging and Tracking Project 2012-2016
- Modelling the impacts of fossils and renewable energy industries on internationally protected seabird populations around Ireland
- The evolutionary ecology of individual variation in cognitive performance
- ADAPT - Avian Diversity and Afforestation Planning Tool
- Interactions between Hen Harriers and Wind Turbines
- People
- Friends
- Teaching
- Gallery
- Opportunities
- How to Find Us
Dr James Savage
Biography
James was a postdoctoral fellow at University College Cork and a visiting researcher at the University of Sheffield (UK). He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge (UK) in 2014, and has since worked at Wageningen University (NL), Cambridge, and Sheffield as a postdoc. Prior to his PhD, James was a research assistant on field projects in Australia, Canada, and the USA.
Research Interests
James is a behavioural ecologist who uses a combination of theoretical, empirical, and comparative methods to answer questions around animal reproduction and sociality, and how these behaviours change under different conditions. Currently, his key research themes are:
- How carers coordinate their joint effort to rear offspring (with Dr Camilla Hinde and Prof. Rufus Johnstone)
- Maternal strategies of shielding and tolerance under damaging transgenerational effects (with Prof. Rufus Johnstone, Prof. Jon Blount and Prof. Mike Cant)
- Parental care and maternal tactics in stochastic environments (with Prof. Andy Russell and Dr Fumiaki Nomano)
- Understanding infertility and variable maternal investment in endangered species (with Dr Nicola Hemmings and Dr Jodie Crane)
- How social and breeding behaviour in Parids changes across spatially heterogeneous environments (with Prof. John Quinn and Dr Alexis Chaine)
Publications
- Savage JL & Crane JMS (2020) What can we learn from antique ornithology? Emu.
- Nomano FY, Savage JL, Browning LE, Griffith, SC & Russell AF (2019) Breeding Phenology and Meteorological Conditions Affect Carer Provisioning Rates and Group-Level Coordination in Cooperative Chestnut-Crowned Babblers. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7, 423.
- Savage JL & Hinde CA (2019) What can we quantify about carer behaviour? Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7, 418.
- Clare C, Cruz M, Papadopoulou E, Savage JL, Teperek M, Wang Y, Witkowska I & Yeomans J (2019) Engaging Researchers with Data Management: The Cookbook. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK.
- Lejeune L, Savage JL, Bründl AC, Thiney A, Russell AF & Chaine AS (2019 ) Environmental effects on parental care visitation patterns in blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7, 356.
- Johnstone RA & Savage JL (2019) Conditional cooperation and turn-taking in parental care. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7, 335.
- Franks VR, McCready M, Savage JL & Thorogood R (2019) Time spent with parents varies with early-life condition, but does not predict survival or sociality of juvenile hihi. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7, 322.
- Riley RJ, Gillie BR, Savage JL, Boogert NJ, Manica A & Jungwirth A (2019) The role of tactile interactions in flight responses in the Bronze Cory catfish (Corydoras aeneus). Ethology 125, 810-20.
- Savage JL, & Cadwallader L (2019) Establishing, developing, and sustaining a community of Data Champions. Data Science Journal 18, 23.
- Khwaja N, Preston, S. A. J., Hatchwell, B. J., Briskie, J. V., Winney, I. S., Savage, J. L. (2017). Flexibility but no coordination of visits in provisioning riflemen. Animal Behaviour, 125, 25–31.
- Snijders, L., Nieuwe Weme, L. E., De Goede, P., Savage, J. L., Van Oers, K. & Naguib, M. (2017). Context-dependent effects of radio transmitter attachment on a small passerine. Journal of Avian Biology 48. 650–9.
- Crane, J. M. S., Savage, J. L. & Russell, A. F. 2016. Diversity and function of vocalisations in the cooperative chestnut-crowned babbler. Emu, 116, 241–253.
- Savage, J. L., Russell, A. F. & Johnstone, R. A. 2015. Maternal allocation in cooperative breeders: should mothers match or compensate for expected helper contributions? Animal Behaviour, 102, 189–197.
- Engesser, S., Crane, J. M. S., Savage, J. L., Russell, A. F. & Townsend, S. W. 2015. Experimental Evidence for Phonemic Contrasts in a Nonhuman Vocal System. PLOS Biology, 13, e1002171.
- Nomano, F. Y., Browning, L. E., Savage, J. L., Rollins, L. A., Griffith, S. C. & Russell, A. F. 2015. Unrelated helpers neither signal contributions nor suffer retribution in chestnut-crowed babblers. Behavioral Ecology, 26, 986–995.
- Savage, J. L., Russell, A. F. & Johnstone, R. A. 2013a. Intra-group relatedness affects parental and helper investment rules in offspring care. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 67, 1855–1865.
- Savage, J. L., Russell, A. F. & Johnstone, R. A. 2013b. Maternal costs in offspring production affect investment rules in joint rearing. Behavioral Ecology, 24, 750–758.
- Young, C. M., Browning, L. E., Savage, J. L., Griffith, S. C. & Russell, A. F. 2013. No evidence for deception over allocation to brood care in a cooperative bird. Behavioral Ecology, 24, 70–81.
- Rollins, L. A., Browning, L. E., Holleley, C. E., Savage, J. L., Russell, A. F. & Griffith, S. C. 2012. Building genetic networks using relatedness information: a novel approach for the estimation of dispersal and characterization of group structure in social animals. Molecular Ecology, 21, 1727–1740.
- Browning, L. E., Young, C. M., Savage, J. L., Russell, D. J. F., Barclay, H., Griffith, S. C. & Russell, A. F. 2012. Carer provisioning rules in an obligate cooperative breeder: Prey type, size and delivery rate. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 66, 1639–1649.
Professional Activity
James is the course designer and primary instructor for “Introduction to Animal Behaviour” on the edX platform. This Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) first ran in summer 2016 and has now attracted over 30,000 students from 164 countries.