Dr Kirsty MacLeod

I am a behavioural ecologist with broad interests in maternal investment, maternal effects, mating systems, and cooperation.

I am currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the labs of Michael Sheriff and Tracy Langkilde at Penn State University. My work will be based jointly in the Departments of Ecosystem Science & Management, and Biology. I will be investigating the effects of maternal stress on offspring in eastern fence lizards – in particular the stress associated with invasive fire ants.

I completed a PhD under the supervision of Professor Tim Clutton-Brock at the University of Cambridge looking at helper investment in offspring through allonursing in the Kalahari meerkat. Find out more about this research here.

More recently, I have been a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge, working with Dr Rose Thorogood on how dietary supplementation might influence maternal reproductive strategies with regards to incubation behaviour and hatching spread.

Ringing great and blue tit nestlings in Madingley Wood, Cambridgeshire (photo by Hannah Rowland)

I was born in South Africa, but have grown up on the beautiful west coast of Scotland. Unsurprisingly this background has given me a love of wild places and wild animals that I love to share via my writing. The amazing quirks of nature and science gives me lots of inspiration. See my blog for writing on current research, including my own. I also write for other, non-scientific, publications.

You can contact me at kirstyjmacleod [at] gmail [dot] com.

Unfortunately I am not currently able to take on PhD or Masters students, and cannot host trainees or interns. If this changes, I will advertise here.

 

Keep up to date with what’s new here!