Tom Hart

Curriculum Vitae:

• 2008-2012: Post Doctoral Research Assistant, Institute of Zoology.
• 2008-2010: Departmental Lecturer, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford.
• 2004-2009: Ph.D. student, British Antarctic Survey and Imperial College London.
• 2002-2004: Research Assistant in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford.
• 2001-2002: MSc. Integrative Bioscience, University of Oxford.
• 1998-2001: BA. Biological Sciences, University of Oxford.
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Research Interests:

Population Genetics of penguins in the Southern Ocean

I am currently isolating microsatellite markers to characterize colonies of penguins around South Georgia and the Scotia Arc. The aim of this project is to see how different species of penguin move around the Southern Ocean. We are currently focusing on Macaroni (Eudyptes chrysolophus) and Gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua), but we are expanding this to include King (Aptenodytes patagonicus), Chinstrap (Pygoscelis antarctica) and Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae).

Foraging ecology of macaroni penguins

I have a large data set from tags on penguins, which record how and where these animals forage. Because we cannot see these animals when they are foraging, we need to infer how they are acting (and reacting to each other) from patterns of movement. I am now trying to link these patterns into the rate of weight gain and their reproductive success.

Collaborators:

British Antarctic Survey
Imperial College London
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Publications:

Turvey, S. T., Barrett, L. A., Hart, T., Collen, B., Yujiang, H., Lei, Z. & Xinqiao, Z. (2010) Spatial and temporal extinction dynamics in a freshwater cetacean. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.0584

Raihani, N. & Hart, T. (2010) Free-riders promote free-riding in a real-world setting. Oikos. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0706.2010.18279.x

Hart, T., Mann, R., Pettorelli, N., Coulson, T. & Trathan, P. N. (2010) Behavioural switching in a central place forager: patterns of diving behaviour in the Macaroni Penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus). Marine Biology. doi: 10.1007/s00227-010-1428-2

Hart, T., Coulson, T. & Trathan, P.N. (2010) Time series analysis of archival tagging data: new approaches to larger data sets. Animal Behaviour, doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.12.033

Turvey, S. T., Barrett, L. A., Lei, Z., Xinqiao, Z., Xianyan, W., Yadong, H., Yujiang, H., Kaiya, Z., Hart, T. & Ding, W. (2010) Forgetting the Yangtze freshwater megafauna: shifting baselines in Yangtze fishing communities, and local memory of extinct species. Conservation Biology. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01395.x

Hart, T., Fitzcharles, E., Trathan, P.N., Coulson, T and Rogers, A.D. (2009) Testing and improving the accuracy of discriminant function tests: a comparison between morphometric and molecular sexing in macaroni penguins. Waterbirds 32: 437-443.

Ahmed, S., Hart. T., Dawson, D.A., Horsburgh, G., Trathan, P.N. & Rogers, A.D. (2009) Isolation and characterization of macaroni penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus) microsatellite loci and their utility in other penguin species (Spheniscidae, AVES). Molecular Ecology Resources 9: 1530-1535.

Vargas, F.H., Barlow, S., Hart, T., Jimenez-Uzcátegui, G., Chavez, J., Naranjo, S. & Macdonald, D.W. (2008) Effects of climate variation on the abundance and distribution of flamingos in the Galápagos Islands. Journal of Zoology 276: 252-265.

McCleery, R.H., Watt, T.A. & Hart, T. (2007) Introduction to Statistics for Biology. Taylor & Frances/CRC.

Rogers, A.D., Baco, A., Griffiths, H.J., Hart. T & Hall-Spencer, J.M. (2007) Corals on seamounts. In: Pitcher A, Morato, T., Hart, P. J. B., Clark, M. R., Haggan, N & Santos, R. S. (Eds.) Seamounts: Ecology, Fisheries and Conservation. Fisheries and Aquatic Resource Series, Blackwell Scientific. Pp 141-169.

Mundy, N.I., Badcock, N.S., Hart, T., Scribner, K., Janssen K. & Nadeau, N.J. (2004) Conserved genetic basis of a quantitative plumage trait involved in mate choice. Science 303:1870-1873.