Chloe Peneaux

The University of Newcastle, Australia · School of Psychology

Theory suggests that overcrowding and increased competition in urban environments might be detrimental to individual condition in avian populations. Unfavourable conditions could be compounded by changes in dietary niche with additional consequences for individual quality of urban birds. We analysed the isotopic signatures, signal coloration, body...

Producing colored signals often requires consuming dietary carotenoid pigments. Evidence that food deprivation can reduce coloration, however, raises the question of whether other dietary nutrients contribute to signal coloration, and furthermore, whether individuals can voluntarily select food combinations to achieve optimal coloration. We created...

Australian cavity-nesting birds in urban habitats can encounter strong competition for nesting cavities. This results from the shortage of old large hollow-bearing trees in urban areas and because cities often host a suite of alien birds, including cavity-nesters. However, it is unclear whether some behavioural differences are involved with access...

Conspicuous coloured displays from ultraviolet to bright red have been documented in many species throughout the animal kingdom. These colours often occur as sexual signals and can be incorporated into different types of integuments (e.g. scales, feathers, skin). Two main mechanisms are known to produce coloured integuments: pigmentation and tissue...

In the past thirty years, carotenoid‐based animal signals have been an intense focus of research because they can potentially broadcast an honest reflection of individual reproductive potential. Our understanding of the underpinning physiological functions of carotenoid compounds is still emerging, however. Here, we argue that wildlife researchers...

Rewilding is emerging as a major issue in conservation. However, there are currently a dozen definitions of rewilding that include Pleistocene rewilding, island rewilding, trophic rewilding, functional rewilding and passive rewilding, and these remain fuzzy, lack clarity and, hence, hinder scientific discourse. Based on current definitions, it is u...

Conversion of natural environments to cities confronts animals with abundant novel opportunities. Research on perception of threat in urban animals is fast expanding, but analyses of their capacity to exploit novel resources are scant. Experimental predictions regarding urban/non-urban behavioral differences are grounded in disparate statements reg...

Invasion success is dependent on the ability of a species to discover and exploit novel food resources. Within this context, individuals must be willing to taste novel foods. They must also be capable of evaluating the nutritional content of new foods, and selecting their relative intake in order to fulfil their nutritional needs. Whereas the forme...

Understanding patterns and drivers of movement in invasive species is critically important to modelling their spread and evaluating their impact. The Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis according to http://www.worldbirdnames.org/, but recently proposed to be reclassified as Sturnus tristis, Christidis and Boles 2008) is an introduced commensal passer...