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• BSc: Marine Biology
  2020–2023

I'm currently studying for a MSciRes in Biological Sciences. My project is looking into whether fish have chronotypes (what we call being an "early bird" or a "night owl" in humans!), and then investigating whether this has an impact on how quickly or accurately they can learn simple maze directions for a reward.

Chronotyping is relatively understudied in fish species as a whole, but it is important to determine if this phenomenon occurs within fish as it may have a substantial impact on fish-human interactions and implications for things like wild-catch fishing industries.

Combining this existing research into fish cognition, learning and navigation would also better allow us to apply any knowledge we gain from this. For example, lionfish (Pterois spp.) are highly invasive in many oceans, and while removing them via spear-fishing initiatives showed some success initially, there is now record of some of these populations adapting to learn human hunting behaviours. Therefore, understanding the variations in the time of day individual fish of the same species are active, and if this has an impact on their ability to learn, would allow us to better deal with and prevent the spread of invasive species.