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John Goss-Custard
Dr John D. Goss-Custard is a British behavioural ecologist; he was one of the first scientists to carry out field work on foraging behaviour making use of optimising models, specifically the optimal diet model. After completing a BSc degree in Zoology at the University of Bristol, he moved to the University of Aberdeen to carry out research for a PhD degree, which he was awarded in 1966. The University of Aberdeen awarded him its DSc degree in 1987. Goss-Custard's PhD was based on the study of foraging in the Common Redshank. Subsequently, he worked at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology's Furzebrook Research Station at Wareham, Dorset, leading an extensive project on the foraging of overwintering Eurasian Oystercatchers on the estuary of the River Exe. This project led to one of the first uses of agent-based modelling to predict ecological relationships in an extended landscape; the model, developed for the Exe estuary, was subsequently tested successfully on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Behavioural Ecology
Behavioral ecology, also spelled behavioural ecology, is the study of the evolutionary basis for animal behavior due to ecological pressures. Behavioral ecology emerged from ethology after Niko Tinbergen outlined four questions to address when studying animal behaviors: What are the proximate causes, ontogeny, survival value, and phylogeny of a behavior? If an organism has a trait that provides a selective advantage (i.e., has adaptive significance) in its environment, then natural selection favors it. Adaptive significance refers to the expression of a trait that affects fitness, measured by an individual's reproductive success. Adaptive traits are those that produce more copies of the individual's genes in future generations. Maladaptive traits are those that leave fewer. For example, if a bird that can call more loudly attracts more mates, then a loud call is an adaptive trait for that species because a louder bird mates more frequently than less loud birds—thus sending mor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Exe
The River Exe ( ) in England rises at Exe Head, near the village of Simonsbath, on Exmoor in Somerset, from the Bristol Channel coast, but flows more or less directly due south, so that most of its length lies in Devon. It flows for 60 miles (96 km) and reaches the sea at a substantial ria, the Exe Estuary, on the south (English Channel) coast of Devon. Historically, its lowest bridging point was the Old Exe Bridge in Exeter, the largest settlement on the river, but there is now a viaduct for the M5 motorway about south of the city centre. Topography The river's name derives from *Uɨsk, a Common Brittonic root meaning "abounding in fish", and a cognate of both the Irish ''iasc'', meaning "fish", and ''pysg'', the plural word for "fish" in Welsh. The same root separately developed into the English Axe and Esk, the Welsh Usk, though not, as some have claimed, the word ''whisky'', this latter being from the Classical Irish/Gaelic "water" (the fuller phrase b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alumni Of The University Of Aberdeen
Alumni (singular: alumnus (masculine) or alumna (feminine)) are former students of a school, college, or university who have either attended or graduated in some fashion from the institution. The feminine plural alumnae is sometimes used for groups of women. The word is Latin and means "one who is being (or has been) nourished". The term is not synonymous with "graduate"; one can be an alumnus without graduating ( Burt Reynolds, alumnus but not graduate of Florida State, is an example). The term is sometimes used to refer to a former employee or member of an organization, contributor, or inmate. Etymology The Latin noun ''alumnus'' means "foster son" or "pupil". It is derived from PIE ''*h₂el-'' (grow, nourish), and it is a variant of the Latin verb ''alere'' "to nourish".Merriam-Webster: alumnus .. Separate, but from th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alumni Of The University Of Bristol
This is a list of University of Bristol people, including a brief description of their notability. This list includes not just former students but persons who are or have been associated with the university, including former academics, Chancellors, and recipients of honorary degrees. Staff and academics Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors Alumni Government and politics United Kingdom International The Law * Alexander Cameron, English Barrister *Sir Richard Field, English High Court Judge, Academic of University of British Columbia, University of Hong Kong, McGill University * Louisa Ghevaert, British family law lawyer * Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond, English judge and first woman to be appointed as the President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Chancellor of University (2004-2016) * Sir Stephen Laws, British lawyer and civil servant who served as the First Parliamentary Counsel (2006-2012) * Victoria Sharp, English Lady Justice of Appeal and Vice-Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation. It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two English ancient universities share many common features and are jointly referred to as ''Oxbridge''. Both are ranked among the most prestigious universities in the world. The university is made up of thirty-nine semi-autonomous constituent colleges, five permanent private halls, and a range of academic departments which are organised into four divisions. All the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, each controlling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Bournemouth
Bournemouth University is a public university in Bournemouth, England, with its main campus situated in neighbouring Poole. The university was founded in 1992; however, the origins of its predecessor date back to the early 1900s. The university currently has over 16,000 students, including over 3,000 international students. The university is recognised for its work in the media industries. Graduates from the university have worked on a number of Hollywood films, including ''Gravity'', which was awarded the Achievement in Visual Effects Oscar at the 86th Academy Awards in 2015. In 2017 Bournemouth University received a silver rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework, a government assessment of the quality of undergraduate teaching in universities and other higher education providers in England. History Predecessor institutions The university was first founded in the early 20th century as the predecessor Bournemouth Municipal College. The college initially offered cour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Exeter
, mottoeng = "We Follow the Light" , established = 1838 - St Luke's College1855 - Exeter School of Art1863 - Exeter School of Science 1955 - University of Exeter (received royal charter) , type = Public , endowment = £49.5 million , budget = £503.1 million , chancellor = Sir Michael Barber , vice_chancellor = Lisa Roberts , head_label = Visitor , head = Charles III '' ex officio'' , city = Exeter, Devon Penryn, Cornwall , country = England , coor = , administrative_staff = 2,647 , faculty = 3,145 (2020) , students = 23,613 (2018/19) , undergrad = 18,932 (2018/19) , postgrad = 4,681 (2018/19) , colours = Green and white , doctoral = , campus = Streatham – Penryn – St Luke's – , affiliations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Wash
The Wash is a rectangular bay and multiple estuary at the north-west corner of East Anglia on the East coast of England, where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire and both border the North Sea. One of Britain's broadest estuaries, it is fed by the rivers Witham, Welland, Nene and Great Ouse. It is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It is also a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade I, a National Nature Reserve, a Ramsar site, a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area. It is in the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and part of it is the Snettisham Royal Society for the Protection of Birds nature reserve. Geography The Wash makes a large indentation in the coastline of Eastern England that separates the curved coast of East Anglia from Lincolnshire. It is a large bay with three roughly straight sides meeting at right angles, each about in length. The eastern coast of the Wash is entirely within Norfolk, and extends from a point a litt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agent-based Modelling
An agent-based model (ABM) is a computational model for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous agents (both individual or collective entities such as organizations or groups) in order to understand the behavior of a system and what governs its outcomes. It combines elements of game theory, complex systems, emergence, computational sociology, multi-agent systems, and evolutionary programming. Monte Carlo methods are used to understand the stochasticity of these models. Particularly within ecology, ABMs are also called individual-based models (IBMs). A review of recent literature on individual-based models, agent-based models, and multiagent systems shows that ABMs are used in many scientific domains including biology, ecology and social science. Agent-based modeling is related to, but distinct from, the concept of multi-agent systems or multi-agent simulation in that the goal of ABM is to search for explanatory insight into the collective behavior of agents obeying ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurasian Oystercatcher
The Eurasian oystercatcher (''Haematopus ostralegus'') also known as the common pied oystercatcher, or palaearctic oystercatcher, or (in Europe) just oystercatcher, is a wader in the oystercatcher bird family Haematopodidae. It is the most widespread of the oystercatchers, with three races breeding in western Europe, central Eurosiberia, Kamchatka, China, and the western coast of Korea. No other oystercatcher occurs within this area. The extinct Canary Islands oystercatcher (''Haematopus meadewaldoi''), formerly considered a distinct species, may have actually been an isolated subspecies or distinct population of the Eurasian oystercatcher. This oystercatcher is the national bird of the Faroe Islands. Taxonomy The Eurasian oystercatcher was listed by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ''Systema Naturae'' under the binomial name ''Haemotopus ostralegus''. The genus name ''Haematopus'' combines the Ancient Greek ''haima'' αἳμα meaning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foraging
Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animal's fitness because it plays an important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce. Foraging theory is a branch of behavioral ecology that studies the foraging behavior of animals in response to the environment where the animal lives. Behavioral ecologists use economic models and categories to understand foraging; many of these models are a type of optimal model. Thus foraging theory is discussed in terms of optimizing a payoff from a foraging decision. The payoff for many of these models is the amount of energy an animal receives per unit time, more specifically, the highest ratio of energetic gain to cost while foraging. Foraging theory predicts that the decisions that maximize energy per unit time and thus deliver the highest payoff will be selected for and persist. Key words used to describe foraging behavior include ''resources'', the elements necessary for survival and reproduction which have a l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wareham, Dorset
Wareham ( ) is a historic market town and, under the name Wareham Town, a civil parish, in the English county of Dorset. The town is situated on the River Frome eight miles (13 km) southwest of Poole. Situation and geography The town is built on a strategic dry point between the River Frome and the River Piddle at the head of the Wareham Channel of Poole Harbour. The Frome Valley runs through an area of unresistant sand, clay and gravel rocks, and much of its valley has wide flood plains and marsh land. At its estuary the river has formed the wide shallow ria of Poole Harbour. Wareham is built on a low dry island between the marshy river plains. The town is situated on the A351 Lytchett Minster- Swanage road, linking Wareham with the A35 and A31 roads and the M27 motorway. Wareham is also the eastern terminus of the A352 road to Dorchester and Sherborne, both roads now bypassing the town centre. The town has a station on the South West Main Line railway, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
