Phil is now a post-doc in the Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Glasgow and can be contacted at P.Boulcott@vet.gla.ac.uk

I am especially interested in the life-history decisions taken by an organism during its life. This interest lies largely within the region of overlap between evolution, ecology, behaviour, and physiology. Working with Emma Cunningham I am currently concentrating on how blue-breasted quail allocate resources to their offspring and how such maternal investment effects persist to influence the fitness of their offspring. Other work carried out with Emma and Nick Colegrave aims to examine how age related allocation decisions in Callosobruchus beetles influence the longevity and fitness of their offspring.

I am also interested in identifying the proximate mechanisms which organisms use to trade-off life-history traits against one another. Work carried out with Peter Wright at Marlab, Aberdeen, examined maturation in the lesser sandeel, Ammodytes marinus,to examine this question. Our findings identified the existence of a critical period of growth during the sandeel’s development upon which maturation is dependant. It is likely that geographic variability in growth during this critical period is driving the regional disparities in age-at-maturity apparent in the North Sea stock. We have since incorporated this information into a large-scale egg production model which will be used to inform future stock management. 

My PhD study examined visually mediated mate-choice decisions taken by stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus. This work established that the three-spined stickleback can respond behaviourally to ultraviolet wavelengths of light and that this information is used during mate-choice by the female. The study also examined how changes in the optical environment and the visual system vary seasonally, providing a mechanism which may serve to drive the direction of evolution of sexually selected traits. 

My interest in the interaction between animal behaviour and physiology, especially in fish, extends to aspects of their welfare. In collaboration with Victoria Braithwaite I am examining approaches to investigate whether fish have the capacity for suffering. We are combining basic measures of physiology and behaviour to quantify how fish react to potentially stressful or noxious stimuli. For example, how different types of lab procedure (e.g. netting, handling etc.) affect fish?