Pilakouta Lab






news
December 2024 ― Amber and Natalie are presenting virtual talks at the British Ecological Society Meeting
November 2024 ― New paper in Ecology and Evolution showing that intraspecific variation in parental care may reflect variation in parental quality
October 2024 ― Natalie gave an invited talk at the International Congress in Ecology and Evolution in Lyon, France
September 2024 ― Hot off the press! Check out our new paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on the multiplicative effects of chronic and acute thermal stressors on animal fertility
September 2024 ― New paper in Animal Behaviour showing that heatwaves during early development can have long-term effects on parental care in adulthood
September 2024 ― This month, we welcome Hannah Hughes and Caitlin Tennant who have joined the lab for their Honours projects
August 2024 ― A warm welcome to Jakob Wiil (PhD student) and Isobel Grieve (MRes student) who have just joined the lab!
July 2024 ― Natalie was interviewed for and featured in a Nature news feature on the importance of publishing null results
July 2024 ― Natalie gave an invited talk at the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) Conference in Prague, Czechia
April 2024 ― Natalie has taken on the role of Deputy Director of Research in the School of Biology
February 2024 ― New paper in Ecological Solutions and Evidence, which is the result of a large collaborative effort to produce a systematic map of studies testing the relationship between temperature and animal reproduction
January 2024 ― Welcome to Oli Green who has joined the lab for his MSc project!
December 2023 ― Hot off the press! New paper in American Naturalist examining the effects of parental care on inbreeding depression using a meta-analytic approach
November 2023 ― Natalie gave an invited talk at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
October 2023 ― We are currently advertising two PhD projects in our lab! You can find details on this page
September 2023 ― Welcome to Ellie Moore, Daniel Allan, and Isobel Grieve who have joined the lab for their Honours projects, and Alison Russell who is doing a StARIS research internship
August 2023 ― Natalie attended the Behaviour 2023 conference in Germany, where she gave two oral presentations and was the primary organiser for a symposium on "Plasticity in social behaviour under environmental change". A big thank you to the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour for facilitating this with an ASAB Childcare Grant!
August 2023 ― Congratulations to Eirini and Claudia, who have completed their MSc projects on the effects of temperature on fertility using a meta-analytic approach
July 2023 ― New paper in Functional Ecology on the effects of heatwaves on animal reproduction (press release here)
July 2023 ― Natalie gave an invited talk on physiological adaptation in geothermal stickleback populations at the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) conference in Edinburgh, UK
July 2023 ― Karendeep presented a poster at the Animal Behavior Society (ABS) conference in Portland, Oregon
June 2023 ― Natalie has joined the Editorial Board of the Journal of Thermal Biology
May 2023 ― Amber presented some preliminary results from her PhD project at EMPSEB 2023 – stay tuned for some very interesting results on the effects of climate change on fertility in marine and freshwater organisms!
May 2023 ― Natalie has joined the Editorial Board of the Journal of Animal Ecology
April 2023 ― Natalie is featured in the Scientists with Impact interviews series by the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB)
April 2023 ― A warm welcome to Eirini Meligoniti and Claudia Hayward who have joined the lab for their MSc projects
February 2023 ― Natalie has joined the Editorial Board of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology
January 2023 ― New paper on the effects of temperature on social behaviour in Global Change Biology (featured on the cover of this month's issue!)
January 2023 ― New paper in Evolution on the predictability of morphological evolution in response to temperature
January 2023 ― New paper on temperature preferences in geothermal fish populations in Ecology and Evolution
December 2022 ― Ava presented a poster and Natalie gave a talk at the BES Conference in Edinburgh
December 2022 ― Natalie gave an invited talk at Newcastle University
November 2022 ― Karendeep is attending this year's United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt
October 2022 ― We are advertising two fully-funded PhD projects in our lab! Check the Join Us page for more details
September 2022 ― Welcome to Amber Chatten who is joining the lab as a PhD student to study the effects of environmental change on marine populations!
September 2022 ― This term we welcome five undergraduate students (Alice Ligonniere, Emma Cassellis, Lorelei Sellers, Rebecca Barratt, and Shannon Harvey) joining the lab for their Honours projects!
July 2022 ― Natalie contributed to an article in The Guardian on the effects of heatwaves on wildlife
July 2022 ― Check out our new paper in the Journal of Animal Ecology on the effects of temperature on mating patterns (featured on the journal cover)
June 2022 ― A warm welcome to Veronika Ljungberg and Zoe Wright who are joining us as field assistants this summer
May 2022 ― Karendeep presented her results on the effects of heatwaves on parental care at EMPSEB in Espoo, Finland!
May 2022 ― Check out our new preprint entitled "Effects of temperature on mating behaviour and mating success: a meta-analysis"
April 2022 ― Natalie gave an invited seminar at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland
April 2022 ― Natalie has been awarded an Early Career Conference Grant by the Association of Commonwealth Universities
March 2022 ― Congratulations to Karendeep who has been awarded an Equal Opportunities Congress Attendance Aid grant!
February 2022 ― Karendeep Sidhu, a PhD student in the lab, is starting a 3-month UKRI policy internship at the Royal Society of Biology
January 2022 ― Our two undegraduate students, Charlotte Malcolm and Matina Zafeiri, have completed their Honours projects!
October 2021 ― Another fully-funded PhD position is available in our group - this project will investigate the molecular mechanisms linking parental care to ageing
September 2021 ― We have a fully-funded PhD position available in our group! This project will investigate how burying beetles influence ecosystem processes through their parental behaviours and how this might be affected by environmental change
September 2021 ― A warm welcome to Charlotte Malcolm and Matina Zafeiri who are starting their Honours projects in the lab!
June 2021 ― Check out our special column on sexual selection and environmental change in this month's issue of Current Zoology
May 2021 ― New paper on evolvability under climate change now out in Evolution & Development
April 2021 ― Natalie has been awarded a Royal Society research grant to study the effects of temperature changes on behavioural interactions
March 2021 ― Hot off the press! Our editorial entitled "Sexual selection and environmental change: what do we know and what comes next?" is now out in Current Zoology
March 2021 ― Natalie gave a plenary talk at the European Meeting for PhD Students in Evolutionary Biology (EMPSEB)
January 2021 ― Congrats to Nikki and Charlotte for completing their Honours projects - stay tuned for some very exciting results from this work!
December 2020 ― Natalie gave two (virtual) talks at the ASAB Winter Meeting and the BES Annual Meeting
November 2020 ― Fully-funded PhD position available in our research group! This PhD project is on parental care and ageing in burying beetles, and the application deadline is 6 January 2021
November 2020 ― Natalie gave an invited talk at Uppsala University's seminar series
October 2020 ― Natalie has joined the Functional Ecology Editorial Board as an Associate Editor!
October 2020 ― A warm welcome to Karendeep Sidhu, who has just joined the lab as a QUADRAT PhD student! She will be studying sexual selection under climate change using a combination of experimental, theoretical, and meta-analytic approaches
September 2020 ― This month, we welcome two new lab members! Charlotte Patterson and Nikki Watt are doing Honours thesis projects on parental care
August 2020 ― New bioRxiv preprint on the predictability of morphological evolution in contrasting thermal environments
June 2020 ― Congratulations to Anais Baillet who has successfully defended her Master's thesis!
February 2020 ― New paper in Functional Ecology on metabolic rate evolution in different thermal environments
January 2020 ― Anais Baillet, a visiting student from University of Rennes, has joined the lab! For the next five months, she will be working on a project looking at the effects of temperature on mating behaviour
November 2019 ― Natalie gave an invited seminar at The James Hutton Institute
November 2019 ― Natalie visited Alison Bell's lab at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, funded by an Early Career Researcher Exchange Grant from the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA)
October 2019 ― Natalie gave an invited seminar at University of Edinburgh
October 2019 ― Natalie has joined University of Aberdeen as a Lecturer in Animal Behaviour and Conservation!