Nicholas B. Davies (scientist)

Nick Davies
FRS
Nick Davies in 2019
Born
Nicholas Barry Davies

(1952-05-23) May 23, 1952[3]
CitizenshipBritish
EducationMerchant Taylors' Boys' School, Crosby
Alma mater
Spouse
Jan Parr
​
(m. 1979)​
[3]
Children2[3]
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsZoology
Behavioral ecology
ThesisThe feeding behaviour of some insectivorous birds (1976)
Euan Dunn[2]
Websitewww.zoo.cam.ac.uk/directory/nick-davies

Nicholas Barry Davies FRS[4] (born 1952)[3] is a British field naturalist and zoologist, and Emeritus Professor of Behavioural ecology at the University of Cambridge, where he is also an Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge.[5]

Education

Davies was privately educated at the Merchant Taylors' Boys' School, Crosby and the University of Cambridge where he was a student at Pembroke College, Cambridge.[3] He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1973, which was automatically converted into a Master of Arts (MA) degree in 1977.[3] He completed his PhD at the University of Oxford in 1976 supervised by Euan Dunn.[2][3]

Career and research

Davies books with John Krebs helped to define the field of behavioural ecology, the study of how behaviour evolves in response to selection pressures from ecology and the social environment.[6][7][8]

Davies study of dunnocks, linked detailed behavioural observations of individuals to their reproductive success, using DNA profiles to measure paternity and maternity, and revealed how sexual conflicts gave rise to variable mating systems including: monogamy, polygyny in animals, polyandry in animals and polygynandry.

Davies studies of cuckoos and their hosts have revealed an evolutionary arms race of brood parasite adaptations and host counter-adaptations.

Other studies include: territory economics in pied wagtails; contest behaviour and mate searching in butterflies and toads; parent-offspring conflict and the transition to independence in young birds.

Awards and honours

  • Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London, 1987
  • Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1994[4]
  • University of Cambridge Teaching Prize, 1995
  • William Bate Hardy Prize of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1995[9]
  • Medal of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, 1996
  • President of the International Society for Behavioural Ecology, 2000-2002
  • British Trust for Ornithology / British Birds "Best Book of the Year Award" in 2000 (for Cuckoos, Cowbirds and Other Cheats) and in 2015 (for Cuckoo - Cheating by Nature).
  • Frink Medal of the Zoological Society of London, 2001
  • Elliott Coues Medal of the American Ornithologists' Union, 2005[10]
  • Hamilton Prize Lecture of the International Society for Behavioural Ecology, 2010
  • Croonian Medal and Lecture of the Royal Society, 2015
  • Godman Salvin Medal of the British Ornithologists' Union, 2022[11]

Publications

  • Behavioural Ecology - An Evolutionary Approach[12]
  • An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology [8]
  • Dunnock Behaviour and Social Evolution[13]
  • Cuckoos, Cowbirds and Other Cheats[14][15][16]

Media coverage

In 2009, his research was featured as a BBC Natural World program "Cuckoo", produced by Mike Birkhead and narrated by David Attenborough.[17]

In 2011 he presented a BBC Radio 4 documentary entitled 'The Cuckoo'.[18]

In 2016 he was interviewed by Jim Al-Khalili for The Life Scientific.[19]

In 2017 he was the guest of Michael Berkeley on the BBC Radio 3 show Private Passions.[20]

In 2017 he appeared in an episode of the BBC Radio 4 Natural Histories series entitled "Cuckoo".[21]

Personal life

Davies married Jan Parr in 1976 and has two children.[3]

His entry in Who's Who lists his hobbies as cricket and birdwatching.[3]

References

  1. ^ https://www.asab.org/asab-medal
  2. ^ a b Davies, Nicholas Barry (1976). The feeding behaviour of some insectivorous birds. ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC 44836319. ProQuest 1760091420.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Anon (2025). "Davies, Prof. Nicholas Barry unlocked". Who's Who (177th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 2720. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U13079. ISBN 9781399411837. OCLC 1427336388. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ a b "Nicholas Davies". royalsociety.org. London: The Royal Society. 2024.
  5. ^ "Professor Nick Davies FRS". zoo.cam.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 26 December 2014.
  6. ^ Manfred Milinski (23 May 2012). "Behavioural ecology: Design for living". Nature. 485 (7399): 444. doi:10.1038/485444A. ISSN 1476-4687. Wikidata Q74438286.
  7. ^ Book Review: An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology, Animal Behaviour, Volume 85, Issue 3, March, Pages 686–687.
  8. ^ a b Krebs, J.R; Davies, N.B.; West, Stuart (2014). An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology (4th ed.). Wiley Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4443-9847-2. OCLC 898271534.
  9. ^ "Nicholas B. Davies". American Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
  10. ^ "AOU | Elliott Coues Award | Nicholas B. Davies". aou.org. Archived from the original on 17 September 2010.
  11. ^ Kilner, Rebecca (13 April 2022). "Godman-Salvin Prize: Nicholas B. Davies". Ibis. 164 (3): 858–859. doi:10.1111/ibi.13057. ISSN 0019-1019. S2CID 248172655.
  12. ^ Krebs, J.R; Davies, N.B., eds. (1997). Behavioural Ecology - An Evolutionary Approach (4th ed.). Blackwell Science. ISBN 978-0-86542-731-0.
  13. ^ Davies, N.B. (1992). Dunnock Behaviour and Social Evolution. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1985-4675-7.
  14. ^ Davies, N.B. (2000). Cuckoos, Cowbirds and Other Cheats. T. & A.D. Poyser. p. 310. ISBN 978-0-8566-1135-3.
  15. ^ Manfred Milinski (23 May 2012). "Behavioural ecology: Design for living". Nature. 485 (7399): 444. doi:10.1038/485444A. ISSN 1476-4687. Wikidata Q74438286.
  16. ^ Dalrymple, Theodore (September 2015). "Cuckoo about Cuckoos". New English Review. Archived from the original on 25 March 2016.
  17. ^ "Cuckoo!". Mike Birkhead Associates. 2008. Retrieved 15 June 2026.
  18. ^ "The Cuckoo". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  19. ^ al-Khalili, Jim (2016) The Life Scientific: Nick Davies, BBC Radio 4 (Broadcast June 21, 2016)
  20. ^ Private Passions BBC Radio 3 (broadcast August 6th, 2017)
  21. ^ "Natural Histories". bbc.co.uk. BBC Radio 4. 8 August 2017. Archived from the original on 14 September 2017.


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