Animal Behaviour

During the first summer (June - Sept 2005) of my undergraduate degree I worked at the Defence science and technology laboratories (as a Dstl sponsored student) for Drs Peter Pearce and Leah Scott, where I carried out an observational study into the behaviour of the common marmoset with the aim of improving the living environment for the animals in laboratory housing. The study looked at the use of a play cage as a form of environmental enrichment and assessed the animals' use of the facility and the behaviours that were displayed. I worked alongside another student, Rebecca Ross, whose work focused on the effect on the animals behaviour of different flooring types in the marmosets home cages. We each produced a written report of our respective findings. Subsequently I compiled our results into a poster which I presented at the European Marmoset Research Group (EMRG) conference in Milan, in September, 2006.

My report: How the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) makes use of the play cage facility in addition to its home environment

The Poster: Quantitative assessment of space in laboratory housing