kkareklas(at)igc.gulbenkian.pt
Short Bio
I graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Marine Biology in 2011 at Newcastle University’s School of Marine Science and Technology, before pursuing an Animal Behaviour Research Master’s (MRres) at the Institute of Neuroscience of the same university. During my MRes study (2011-2012) I worked with T. Smulders and D. Nettle on a project on the function of water-induced finger-wrinkles in humans and studied animal welfare, cognitive neuroscience and experimental design for cognitive and behavioural research. In 2013 I obtained a studentship from the Department for Education and Learning, Northern Ireland, to carry out a PhD at Queen’s University Belfast with R. Holland and Robert Elwood in fish behaviour and cognition, focusing on individual behaviour, phenotypic plasticity and the effects of personality on object inspection and spatial learning in individuals and groups. Since graduating in 2017, I obtained funding from the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour to carry out original research on contest behaviour and the effects of noise in Siamese fighting fish (2017-2018), carried out a short project on contest behviour and noise in European Robins in collaboration with H. P. Kunk and G. Arnott (2018), and participated in a H2020 project modelling the epidemiology of gastrointestinal parasites in farming systems and the effects of vaccines with E. Morgan (2019; PRAGONE). Currently I am happily working as part of the Integrative Behavioural Biology group at the Instituto Gulbenkina de Ciência, participating in Rui Oliveira’s FCT funded Portugal 2020 project ‘SOCIALPEPTIDES’ investigating the role of oxytocin in social behaviour.
Research interests
My work is based on integrative and interdisciplinary research, with an interest in the interaction of animals with their environment and others, focusing on mechanisms and functions of cognition and behaviour, phenotypic plasticity and adaptation. I have worked within and between the fields of ecology, behaviour, cognition, neuroscience and evolutionary biology. I am fascinated by many taxons with past research involving corals, annelids, fish, birds, ungulates and humans. Currently I am interested in the drivers of social behaviour, focusing mainly on the development and evolution of underlying mechanisms.
Publications
Kareklas, K., Wilson, J., Kunc, H. P., & Arnott, G. (2019). Signal complexity communicates aggressive intent during contests, but the process is disrupted by noise. Biology letters, 15(4), 20180841.
Kareklas, K., Elwood, R. W., & Holland, R. A. (2018). Grouping promotes risk-taking in unfamiliar settings. Behavioural processes, 148, 41-45.
Kareklas, K., Arnott, G., Elwood, R. W., & Holland, R. A. (2016). Plasticity varies with boldness in a weakly-electric fish. Frontiers in zoology, 13(1), 22.
