Past Student Profile

Christina Halpin

Tel: 0191 222 6948
Email: christina.halpin@newcastle.ac.uk
Fax: 0191 222 5622
Address: Centre for Behaviour and Evolution
Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University
Henry Wellcome Building
Framlington Place
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 4HH

Research Interests

I moved to the UK from Sweden in 1997 to study Zoology at Newcastle. After graduating I spent a few years working in cancer research before returning to the field of zoology. In 2008 I completed a PhD in avian cognition and the evolution of insect warning signals under the supervision of Candy Rowe. I have since remained in her group here at Newcastle, and I’m currently doing a postdoc, funded jointly by the BBSRC and NERC, studying the foraging behaviour of ‘educated’ avian predators.

Project

We currently know little about how birds use information they have learned about insect prey to make strategic foraging choices. Inexperienced predators can use visual signals to learn to avoid toxic insects but even toxic prey have a nutrients which will be of value to a nutritionally stressed predator.

I am currently investigating how birds make decisions about whether or not to include toxic prey in their diet and how they balance their intake of toxins and nutrients. I am also interested in looking at how they use visual signals to make their foraging choices.

Publications

  • Halpin C.G., Skelhorn, J. & Rowe, C. Naïve predators and selection for rare conspicuous defended prey: the initial evolution of aposematism revisited. Animal Behaviour 2008, 75, 771-781.
  • Halpin C.G., Skelhorn, J. & Rowe, C. Taste-rejection and the evolution of aposematism via individual selection: a paradox revisited. Behavioural Ecology 2008, 19(5): 1012-1017.
  • Halpin C.G. & Rowe, C. Taste-rejection behaviour by predators can promote variability in prey defences, Biology Letters 2010, in press.