Question: how many animals have you found out about

Edward Codling answered on 21 Jun 2011:

Hi blondie2! 🙂

A lot of my work has been done to look at general principles of animal behaviour that can be applied to many different species. For example, we did some theoretical computer simulations that helped us understand the mechansims of how different animal groups interact and behave – this work is used to help understand animals like fish schools, bird flocks, herds of deer, swarms of insects (bees, ants etc) and even humans.

I have also studied the populations of many different fish species. This is so that we can try to predict how many fish are in the sea and how many can be safely caught each year so that fishing is sustainable. Some of my work has been used by the EU fisheries ministers when they decide on how much fish can be caught in Europe so this has been quite important. The fish species that I’ve been most interested in are things like cod, plaice, herring, etc but I have also looked at sharks!

I am also involved in some ‘real’ experiments with various animals. We are doing observational experiments with baby coral reef fish such as baby clownfish (Nemo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clownfish) and looking at their behaviour – whether they react to sound or chemical cues and whether they interact in groups. I am also looking at plankton behaviour – these are tiny bugs that live in water but they are very difficult to see and we have to use a microscope to observe them. Finally, I have also done some experiments with human crowds – and I’d like to do more of these experiments if I can find more volunteers (like groups of schoolkids if you want to take part!).