Tom is now a post-doc at the University of Washington in Seattle and can be contacted at tomreed@u.washington.edu

PhD: Phenology in seabirds; individual variation and evolutionary consequences
My project aims to explore how individuals optimise reproductive scheduling, in order to understand patterns of selection that shape and maintain variation in phenology within natural populations. How important is phenotypic plasticity in breeding time and how does this relate to fitness and survival? Do individuals respond in different ways to environmental variation and if so why? What is the impact of population structure on phenological responses? How do parasites affect parental allocation of resources and might such costs be different for birds breeding at different times in the season?

These questions are being addressed using a combination of statistical analysis of long-term data and field experiments, focusing on two species of colonially-breeding seabirds on the Isle of May, Scotland – the Common Guillemot, Uria aalge and the European Shag, Phalacrocorax aristotelis. Work is being carried out in collaboration with the Coastal Seas Ecology Group, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH).