Jessica Mitchell: PhD Student 2013-16
Jess has completed her PhD and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Leeds working on community engagement in avoiding antimicrobial resistance.
Jess completed her PhD at Liverpool John Moores University
Co-supervised by Dr Hazel Nichols and Prof Richard Brown, and in collaboration with prof Mike Cant at the University of Exeter.
Project: Odour signals contain multi-modal information in the banded mongoose (Mungos mungo).
I moved to Liverpool after previously completing my Undergraduate and Masters Degrees at the University of Sheffield where I specialised in genetics and behaviour. I then spent two years working on a long-term project in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert to study the behaviour of wild Meerkats. I am broadly interested in cooperative and reproductive behaviours, particularly how these are underpinned mechanistically. For my PhD I am investigating how odour cues can communicate information on familiarity, relatedness, reproductive status and infection; the overall aim being to address how odour communication is involved in reproductive decision making in the banded mongoose.
I am particularly interested in mate choice as this is common association seen across mammals, fish and birds. In Darwinian terms we know it benefits individuals to select a “good” mate to ensure the production of high quality offspring, but what is less clear is how this selection process occurs. How are individuals selecting mates, on what basis do they discriminate and what cues are involved in mate choice? In the banded mongoose system these questions are all particularly relevant as both males and females appear to be selective about their mates. They also live in large, closely related groups and face a genuine risk of inbreeding which may orchestrate scent-based mate-choice behaviour.
Additionally, banded mongooses forage in areas frequented by other mammals, reptiles and birds, placing them at high risk of contracting intestinal parasites. I have, therefore, identified a subset of common internal parasites harboured by banded mongooses and now aim to investigate whether mate-choice may be affected by such parasite load.
My research centres on how scent marking may be used attract mates. By using chemical analyses of scent samples I have created individual odour-profiles for each banded mongoose in my study population. I can now consider how the chemical composition of these odour profiles changes with respect to relatedness, heterozygosity, reproductive status and infection status. During field-work I empirically test whether mongooses can detect such differences by conducting a multitude of odour-presentation experiments
I thus take a broad, multi-disciplinary approach to my PhD, combining field work with chemical and parasitic analyses. This will allow me to assess how mate-choice may be driven by the olfactory-identification of a high-quality partner.
Jess completed her PhD at Liverpool John Moores University
Co-supervised by Dr Hazel Nichols and Prof Richard Brown, and in collaboration with prof Mike Cant at the University of Exeter.
Project: Odour signals contain multi-modal information in the banded mongoose (Mungos mungo).
I moved to Liverpool after previously completing my Undergraduate and Masters Degrees at the University of Sheffield where I specialised in genetics and behaviour. I then spent two years working on a long-term project in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert to study the behaviour of wild Meerkats. I am broadly interested in cooperative and reproductive behaviours, particularly how these are underpinned mechanistically. For my PhD I am investigating how odour cues can communicate information on familiarity, relatedness, reproductive status and infection; the overall aim being to address how odour communication is involved in reproductive decision making in the banded mongoose.
I am particularly interested in mate choice as this is common association seen across mammals, fish and birds. In Darwinian terms we know it benefits individuals to select a “good” mate to ensure the production of high quality offspring, but what is less clear is how this selection process occurs. How are individuals selecting mates, on what basis do they discriminate and what cues are involved in mate choice? In the banded mongoose system these questions are all particularly relevant as both males and females appear to be selective about their mates. They also live in large, closely related groups and face a genuine risk of inbreeding which may orchestrate scent-based mate-choice behaviour.
Additionally, banded mongooses forage in areas frequented by other mammals, reptiles and birds, placing them at high risk of contracting intestinal parasites. I have, therefore, identified a subset of common internal parasites harboured by banded mongooses and now aim to investigate whether mate-choice may be affected by such parasite load.
My research centres on how scent marking may be used attract mates. By using chemical analyses of scent samples I have created individual odour-profiles for each banded mongoose in my study population. I can now consider how the chemical composition of these odour profiles changes with respect to relatedness, heterozygosity, reproductive status and infection status. During field-work I empirically test whether mongooses can detect such differences by conducting a multitude of odour-presentation experiments
I thus take a broad, multi-disciplinary approach to my PhD, combining field work with chemical and parasitic analyses. This will allow me to assess how mate-choice may be driven by the olfactory-identification of a high-quality partner.