Welcome
Our group's research focuses on behavioural and ecological aspects of animal navigation and spatial cognition, using a number of different species and a variety of state-of-the-art sensor technologies. We study the contribution of individual cognitive capabilities and navigational strategies, and of the ecological, sensory, and social environments to animal movement.
We are based at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, and are part of the Animal Behaviour Research Group. Please use the tabs at the top to navigate the website and to find out more about our research, members, publications and funding.
Research assistant position available
We are currently looking for a voluntary research assistant to help with our pelagic seabird research on Skomer Island, Wales, in Spring and Summer 2013. More details are available here. The deadline to apply is the 20th January 2013.
Recent Publications
Pettit, B., A. Flack, R. Freeman, T. Guilford, and D. Biro. "Not just passengers: pigeons, Columba livia, can learn homing routes while flying with a more experienced conspecific." Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 280, no. 1750 (2013): 1471-2954.
Dean, B. J., R. Freeman, H. Kirk, K. Leonard, R. A. Phillips, C. M. Perrins, and T. Guilford. "Behavioural mapping of a pelagic seabird: combining multiple sensors and a hidden Markov model reveals the distribution of at-sea behaviour." Journal of the Royal Society Interface FirstCite Online (2012).
Burt de Perera, Theresa, and Robert I. Holbrook. "Three-dimensional spatial representation in freely swimming fish." Cognitive Processing 13, no. S1 (2012): 107-111.
Guilford, T., R. Wynn, M. McMinn, A. Rodríguez, A. Fayet, L. Maurice, A. Jones, and R. Meier. "Geolocators Reveal Migration and Pre-Breeding Behaviour of the Critically Endangered Balearic Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus." PLoS ONE 7, no. 3 (2012): e33753.
Walters, C. L., R. Freeman, A. Collen, C. Dietz, M. Brock Fenton, G. Jones, M. K. Obrist, S. J. Puechmaille, T. Sattler, B. M. Siemers et al. "A continental-scale tool for acoustic identification of European bats." Journal of Applied Ecology (2012).
Flack, A., B. Pettit, R. Freeman, T. Guilford, and D. Biro. "What are leaders made of? The role of individual experience in determining leader–follower relations in homing pigeons." Animal Behaviour 83 (2012): 703-709.
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