| Citation | Nick Davies is distinguished for his outstanding contributions to the field of behavioural ecology. His work is charcterised by exquisite field experimentation and an extraordinary flair for collecting data that shed light on unresolved conceptual issues. In his early work he demonstrated how contests among individiuals may be settled by asymmetries in ability to exploit resources, in size or merely by prior residence. This work provided valuable insights into the evolutionary stability of fighting strategies. In a long-term study of dunnocks, Davies has elucidated the mechanisms underlying the remarkably variable mating system of this species and generated important conceptual advances in the understanding of mating systems in general. A second, long-term study has made a major contribution to resolving the problem of how parasitism by cuckoos and rejection behaviour by hosts coevlove. This work has broader implications for the coevolution of parasite-host relationships. |