Graeme Ruxton is a zoologist known for his research into

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 ...

and

evolutionary ecology Evolutionary ecology lies at the intersection of ecology and evolutionary biology. It approaches the study of ecology in a way that explicitly considers the evolutionary histories of species and the interactions between them. Conversely, it can ...

Life and work

Ruxton received his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in Statistics and Modelling Science in 1992 from the

University of Strathclyde The University of Strathclyde () is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow's second-oldest university, having received its royal charter in 1964 as the first techn ...

. His studies focus on the evolutionary pressures on aggregation by animals, and predator-prey aspects of sensory ecology. He researched visual communication in animals at the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

, where he was professor of

theoretical ecology Theoretical ecology is the scientific discipline devoted to the study of ecosystem, ecological systems using theoretical methods such as simple conceptual models, mathematical models, computer simulation, computational simulations, and advanced d ...

. In 2013 he became professor at the

University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

Publications

Ruxton has published numerous papers on

antipredator adaptation Anti-predator adaptations are mechanisms developed through evolution that assist Predation, prey organisms in their constant struggle against predators. Throughout the animal kingdom, adaptations have evolved for every stage of this struggle, na ...

s, along with contributions to textbooks. His book ''Living in Groups'' has been cited over 2300 times. His textbook ''Avoiding Attack. The Evolutionary Ecology of Crypsis, Warning Signals and Mimicry'' has been cited over 1150 times. His paper "Collective memory and spatial sorting in animal groups" has been cited over 1300 times, while his paper on the use of

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

in behavioural ecology, "The unequal variance t-test is an underused alternative to Student's t-test and the Mann–Whitney U test", has been cited over 850 times.

Honours and awards

In 2012 Ruxton was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

References

External links

University of Glasgow bio of Ruxton
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruxton, Graeme British ecologists Evolutionary biologists Living people Mathematical ecologists Year of birth missing (living people) Camouflage researchers