Name:  Rory P. Wilson (Chair, Aquatic Biology)         Email:  r.p.wilson@swansea.ac.uk Tel:  + 44 (0)1792 295376

Research Interests

I am interested in how free-living animals modulate the energetic costs they have for activities (including incidences, extents and intensities of activities) according to their environment and particularly how animals manage their time and energy to forage most effectively. Most of my research focuses on seabirds, especially penguins, but I am also involved in work with marine mammals, turtles, terrestrial and arboreal mammals and terrestrial birds.

Selected publications   

• Wilson, R. P., McMahon, C. R., Quintana, F., Frere, E., Scolaro, J. A., Hays, C. G,  Bradshaw, C. J. A. (In press). N-dimensional energetic niches clarify behavioural options in a variable marine environment. J. Exp. Biol. (in press)
• Wilson, R. P. (2011). The price tag. Nature 469: 164-165
• Wilson, R. P. (2010). Resource partitioning and niche hyper-volume overlap in free-living Pygoscelid penguins. Funct. Ecol. 24; 646-657
• Wilson, R. P., Shepard, E. L. C., Gomez-Laich, A., Frere, E., Quintana, F. (2010). Pedalling downhill and freewheeling up; a penguin perspective on foraging. Aquat. Biol. 8: 193-202
• Wilson, R. P., Vargas, F. H., Steinfurth, A., Riordan, P., Ropert-Coudert, Y., Macdonald, D. W. (2008). What grounds some birds for life? Movement  and diving in the sexually-dimorphic Galapagos Cormorant. Ecol. Monographs 78; 633-652

Projects

• The foraging ecology of penguins
• The behaviour and energetics of albatrosses
• 3-d space use in cormorants
• The ecology of sloths
• The movement ecology of sharks
• The foraging ecology of seals
• Patterns of space use in ungulates
• The movement and behavioural ecology of carnivores
• Accelerometry for determining energetics and behaviour of raptors
• Assessment of device effects of wild animals
• Development of technology for determining the biology of wild animals
• Development of analytical methods for interpreting animal-attached transducer data

Collaborators  

• Dr Flavio Quintana, CENPAT, Argentina
• Agustina Gómez Laich, CENPAT, Argentina
• Juan Emilio Sala, CENPAT, Argentina
• Dr Sergio Lambetucci, Ecotono, Bariloche, Argentina
• Maria del Mar Contaldi, Ecotono, Bariloche, Argentina
• Adam Grogan, RSPCA, UK
• Judy Avey-Arroyo, Aviarios del Caribe, Costa Rica
• Dr Lewis Halsey, Roehampton University, UK
• Brad Norman, Murdoch University, Australia
• Andrew Gray, Manchester University, UK
• Patricia Graf, Vienna University, Austria
• Professor Peter Ryan, Cape Town University, South Africa
• Professor Coleen Moloney, Cape Town University, South Africa
• Dr David Grémillet, CNRS, Montpellier, France
• Professor Pat Butler, Birmingham University, UK
• Dr Ursula Siebert, Kiel University, Germany
• Dr Klaus Lucke, Texel, Netherlands
• Professor Martin Wikelski, Max Plank Institut, Radolfzell, Germany

Funding

• National Geographic
• Oiled Wildlife Care Network
• Rolex Awards for Enterprise
• Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals
• Wildlife Computers

Professor Rory Wilson's Homepage