Advisory Board and Editors Zoology
Jorg J.M. Massen
I am a comparative psychologist specializing in social cognition. Currently I work as an Assistant Professor at the Animal Behaviour and Cognition Group of Utrecht University (NL). My research mainly focuses on the proximate mechanisms underlying animal social relations, with special interest in cooperative and prosocial behaviours. For that I use both observational and experimental approaches. Moreover, to put my studies in an evolutionary perspective, I employ a broad comparative approach, focusing on a variety of primate and bird species.
Fernando Mata
Dr. Fernando Mata has an academic background in Agronomy and Animal Production at the Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, where he also completed his postgraduate studies in Applied Maths. In addition, Dr. Mata completed his postgraduate studies in Pedagogy for Higher Education at The University of the West of England, UK. The skills gained while studying Maths and Animal Science led to him becoming an Animal Welfare Epidemiologist, the topic of his Doctorate in Veterinary Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.
Professionally, he began his career as a dairy farmer and later moved into academia. He has lecturing experiences both in Portugal (Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre) and in the UK (University of the West of England, Newcastle University, Greenwich University and Wrexham Glyndwr University).
Currently, Dr. Mata is fully focused on research at the Centre for Research and Development in Agrifood Systems and Sustainability in the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo Portugal. Fernando has Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, is a Registered animal Scientist with the British Society of Animal Science and is a Certified Biologist with the Royal Society of Biology. Apart from Animal Welfare Epidemiology, Fernando is interested in Animal Production, and Animal Performance in general.
Tetsuro Matsuzawa
Majoring Comparative Cognitive Science; Primatology. PhD from Kyoto University in 1989. Tetsuro Matsuzawa has been studying chimpanzees both in the laboratory and the wild. The laboratory work is known as the "Ai-project" in the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University since 1977: A female chimpanzee named Ai learned to use Arabic numerals to represent numbers (Matsuzawa, 1985, Nature). The fieldwork has been carried out in Bossou-Nimba, Guinea, since 1986, focusing on the tool use and the culture in the wild. Matsuzawa tries to synthesize the field and the lab work to understand the mind of chimpanzees to know the evolutionary origins of the human mind. He published the English books such as “Primate Origins of Human Cognition and Behavior", “Cognitive Development in Chimpanzees", “The Minds of the Chimpanzees”, and “The Chimpanzees of Bossou and Nimba".
Grant B McClelland
Professor of Biology at McMaster University, President of the Canadian Society of Zoologists (2019-2020).
My research focuses on the ontogeny, phenotypic plasticity and evolution of muscle metabolism - important for locomotion, thermogenesis, and whole-body metabolic homeostasis. I use mechanistic and evolutionary physiology approaches, and take advantage of "experiments in nature" by studying species that thrive in extreme environments such as high altitude. I do applied research on the impacts of changing temperature, low oxygen, and pollution on the physiology of fishes.
Matthew McCurry
Dr Matthew McCurry is a vertebrate palaeontologist and functional morphologist. His work focuses on understanding the behaviour, ecology and evolution of extinct species using the fossil record. Matthew incorporates fieldwork, descriptive palaeontology, comparative anatomy, 3D scanning and cutting-edge biomechanical simulations to discover new fossil species and gain new insights into how they once lived. He began working at the Australian Museum Research Institute and UNSW in 2017. Prior to this Matthew held fellowships at Monash University and The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. He possesses an honours degree from The University of Newcastle and a PhD from Monash University.
Alan G McElligott
Dr. Alan McElligott is an Associate Professor in Animal Behaviour and Welfare at the Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, City University of Hong Kong. He received his BSc from University College Cork, PhD from University College Dublin, and postdoctoral training at the University of Zurich. After serving as faculty member at the University of Nottingham, Queen Mary University of London and the University of Roehampton, he joined City University of Hong Kong in 2020. Dr. McElligott's main research areas include animal behaviour and cognition, animal welfare, and vocal communication.
Seabird McKeon
Biodiversity Scientist, Evolutionary Ecologist, Marine Biologist, Natural Historian.
Fernanda Michalski
Dr. Fernanda Michalski is Associate Professor of Ecology and Conservation of Vertebrates at the Federal University of Amapá, Macapá, Brazil. Member of the British Ecological Society. Her research focuses on understanding the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on Neotropical mid sized and large-bodied vertebrates. She is particularly interested in ecology and conservation of mammals, and in understanding human-wildlife conflicts in the Brazilian Amazon.
Blanca Moncunill-Solé
I am a palaeobiologist interested in unravelling the biology and evolutionary dynamics of extinct small mammal taxa, particularly on lagomorphs. During my early career, I have developed models for reconstructing the size of past small mammals, and the use cutting-edge palaeontological techniques (e.g. palaeohistology) for disentangling their biology and evolutionary history. These studies allow me to establish the first long-term database of evolutionary responses of small mammals to insularity, being useful for conservation purposes of extant ones. Besides, I am an active researcher in outreaching (articles, workshops, media interviews, exhibition curator, social and outreaching projects, etc.), to bring science to society and to spread my results. At present, my research lines are focused on determination of the evolutionary and ecological dynamics of extinct lagomorphs to past climate and environmental changes, identifying the drivers, biological shifts and extinction rates. In fact, revealing how this family evolved to past environmental changes will contribute to the development of more effective conservationist strategies and policies for threatened extant taxa, helping, hence, in the present and future ecosystem management and protection
Daniel C Moreira
My research interests lie in the area of redox processes in biology and medicine. My main line of work investigates the role and underlying mechanisms of redox metabolism (i.e., reactive species and endogenous antioxidants) in animals during the depression of metabolic rate induced by environmental stresses, including projects that examine the modulation of antioxidant systems in animals exposed to oxygen deprivation and during other situations of metabolic depression. More recently and concurrently, I am also involved in the prospection of bioactive natural compounds (e.g., peptides from amphibians, plant extracts and phytochemicals) for health applications, with emphasis on antioxidant molecules.
Darren Norris
Lecturer at the Federal University of Amapá, Brazil. My research interests are broad and are currently focused on the conservation of biodiversity and traditional livelihoods around waterways that traverse political (national and international), cultural and ecological boundaries. I am particularly interested in inter-disciplinary approaches, comprising population and community ecology, population biology, landscape and spatial statistics.
Jörg Oehlmann
Graduated as Dr. rer. nat. at University Münster in 1994. Habilitation at the International Graduate School Zittau in 1998. 2001-2004: Full professor (C3) for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Goethe University Frankfurt. Since 2004 full professor (C4) for Aquatic Ecotoxicology at Goethe University Frankfurt.
Head of the Department Aquatic Ecotoxicology and the Master's Programme in Environmental Sciences at Goethe University.
Primary research interests: Biological effects monitoring, endocrine active chemicals, pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the environment, effects of microplastics on aquatic organisms, development of an integrated water resource management.