Emily Lake
I am originally from Australia where I completed part one of my undergraduate degree at La Trobe University in Melbourne and part two, my honours year, at the Australian National University graduating in 2010. Since then I have been volunteering and working as a zookeeper in both Australia and the UK until the opportunity to undertake my masters arose at the beginning of 2014. My research interests are broad and have been wide ranging throughout my tertiary education from genetics to microbiology to ecology and biological anthropology. At present I am interested in the theory of a landscape of fear for prey species, particularly for small mammals. This involves using data from experiments such as giving up densities or similar processes and mapping it onto the topography of an area to create a landscape of fear. My current project is looking at a landscape of fear for the rock hyrax (Procavia capensis). This small, brown sub-Saharan mammal is famed for its close genetic relationship to elephants and other members of the clade Paenungulata. Its life history and membership of this clade should mean that it is risk averse in the face of predation; however, the 3 species of hyrax are a favoured prey item for many predators including raptors, snakes and leopards. For my fieldwork I will be based at the Anthropology Field Station at the Lajuma Research Centre, Soutpansberg Mountains, Limpopo Province, South Africa where my supervisor Dr Russell Hill has been running the Primate and Predator Project and there are populations of multiple hyrax species as well as a healthy predator population. Position: MSc student in the Anthropology Department and Department of Biosciences
Supervised by: Dr Russell Hill (Anthropology) and Dr Shane Richards Membership: Evolutionary Anthropology Research Group (EARG), Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution Research (BEER) Centre, British Ecological Society (BES) Contact Details: Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Dawson Building, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE. Email:[email protected] Education
2014-present MSc Anthropology, Durham University, UK 2010 BSc Evolutionary Genetics (Honours) Australian National University 2007-2009 BSc Animal and Veterinary Biosciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia Additional Information
Previous areas of research: Evolutionary genetics of marsupials (Honours thesis) |
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