John R. Krebs
University of Oxford
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Primary Section: 63, Environmental Sciences and Ecology Secondary Section: 27, Evolutionary Biology Membership Type:
International Member
(elected 2004)
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Research Interests
My research has focused on four themes: (i) Animal Communication. In the late 1970s, together with Dawkins, I challenged the then received wisdom that animal communication is cooperative. Instead we argued signallers exploit receivers and vice versa. (ii) Foraging strategies. In collaboration with Charnov, Stephens, Kacelnik and others, I developed the idea that economic models of decision-making could be applied to foraging animals and used to predict both the distribution of foraging effort across patches, and the choice of prey items within a patch. (iii) Memory adaptations and the brain. Together with Sherry, Shettleworth, Clayton and others, I developed a research programme to investigate the relationship between spatial memory, neuroanatomical specialisation in the brain and food-storing behaviour. (iv) Population ecology. In my early work I analysed the relationship between food supply and territorial behaviour in limiting bird populations. More recently I have led a team investigating the ways in which modern farming practice has caused declines in many bird populations in the UK. I have also spent eleven years at the interface between science and policy, both in relation to the environment and in relation to food safety and nutrition.
