Research
Species interactions and the ecology of individuals
Why do individual animals vary so greatly in how they behave? Beyond being the raw material for natural selection to act upon, individual behavioural variation scales up to shape population and ecosystem level processes. My research aims uses the lens of predator-prey interactions to understand why animals behave the way they do and explore how individual behavioural variation scales up.
Selected publications:
Wooster, E.I.F.; Gaynor, K.M.; Carthey, A.J.R.; Wallach, A.D.; Stanton, L.A.; Ramp, D.; Lundgren E.J. (2024) Animal cognition and culture mediate predator-prey interactions. Trends in Ecology & Evolution.
Wooster, E.I.F.; Ramp, D.; Lundgren, E.J.; Ben-Ami, D.; Bonsen, G.T.; Carroll S.; Carthey, A.J.R; Geisler-Edge, A.; Keynan O.; Olek, Y.; O’Neill, A.J.; Shanas, U.; Wallach, A.D. (2024). Prey responses to foxes are not determined by nativeness. Ecography.
Wooster, E.I.F.; Ramp, D.; Lundgren, E.J.; O’Neill, A.J.; Wallach, A.D. (2021). Red foxes avoid apex predation without increases in fear. Behavioral Ecology.
Advancing ecological and behavioural theory
Species interactions in the Anthropocene
Like predators, humans exert strong lethal and non-lethal pressures on animals. Humans rearrange ecological communities via introduction and extinction and drive animals to alter their behaviour to avoid encountering humans. My research looks to uncover how animals, their ecological interactions and ecosystems adapt to human disturbance and the consequences of novel interactions across levels of biological organisation. I work across a variety of novel anthropogenic stressors including hunting, climatic change and changing fire regimes.
Selected publications:
Wooster, E.I.F.; Lundgren, E.J.L; Nimmo, D.G.; Cowan, M.A.; Fricke, E.C.; Carthey, A.J.R.; Frank, A.S.K; Grabowski, K.L.; Green, J.R.; Linley, G.D.; McEvoy, T.; Simpson, A.; Westaway, D.; Wrensford, K.; Wright, N.S.; Nakagawa, S.† & Gaynor, K.M.†. Predator-prey temporal niche partitioning under human disturbance: A meta-analysis. Nature Communications. In press.
Wooster, E.I.F.; Middleton, O.; Wallach, A.D.; Ramp, D.; Harris, V.K.; Rowan, J.; Schowanek, S.D.; Gordon, C.E.; Svenning, J.C.; Davis, M.; Scharlemann, J.P.W.; Nimmo D.G; Lundgren, E.J.; Sandom, C.J. (2024). Australia’s recently established predators restore complexity to food webs simplified by extinction. Current Biology.
Gaynor, K.M.; Wooster, E.I.F.; Martinig, A.; Green, J.; Chen, A.; Cuadros, S.; Gill, R.; Khanal, G.; Love, N.; Marcus, R.; Mills, CL.; Wrensford, K.C.; Wright, N.S.; Mezzini, S.; Marley, Jessa.; Noonan, M.J. (2025). The human shield hypothesis: does predator avoidance of humans create refuges for prey? Ecology Letters.
How and why does behaviour vary through space and time? Uncovering how behavioural variation between and among species evolved remains a central question to biology. My research aims to use synthesis, meta-analysis and macro-ecological, -evolutionary and -behavioural analysis to search for generality and avenues forward in behavioural ecology.
Selected publications:
Wooster, E.I.F.; Whiting, M.J.; Nimmo, D.G.; Sayol, F.; Carthey A.J.R.; Stanton, L.A.; Ashton B.J. Predator-prey interactions as drivers of cognitive evolution. Nature Reviews Biodiversity. In press. Preprint: https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/9520/
Wooster, E.I.F.; Nimmo, D.G. (2024). Functional trait databases for Macrobehaviour. Trends in Ecology & Evolution.
Wooster, E.I.F.; Lundgren, E.J.; Rowan, J.; Balisi, M.; Svenning, J.C.; Scharlemann, J.P.W.; Sandom, C.J. et al. (2024). The functional traits of the worlds late quaternary mammalian terrestrial predators. Global Ecology and Biogeography.