Clelia is a second year MSc student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. During her Bachelor’s degree internship she gained experience in investigating molecular phylogenesis and evolution of the animal kingdom, but she now wants to focus on the mechanisms through which ecology influences the evolution of animal behaviour. For her master’s thesis, Clelia is studying how social information use by predators shapes evolutionary interactions with aposematic prey. She is co-supervised by Liisa Hämäläinen (Macquarie University, Australia and University of Jyväskylä) and has been conducting her experiments at the University of Jyväskylä’s Konnevesi Research Station.
Juho is a Master’s student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Jyväskylä but he has spent the last two summers working with reed warblers in Rose Thorogood’s group. In summer 2019, Juho joined the group as a fieldwork assistant and this summer 2020, he continued sloshing in the reeds to collect data for his MSc thesis. Juho is an experienced photographer, birdwatcher and interested in behavioural ecology, especially colouration and camouflage, which he studied in his BSc thesis on Eurasian treecreepers. In his MSc thesis, Juho will quantify the reed warbler’s egg colouration using state-of-the-art image analysis techniques (in collaboration with Jolyon Troscianko, University of Exeter, UK) and test if there is more variation here in Finland at the species’ range front, and whether females optimise egg camouflage by habitat choice. Juho received a grant from Societas pro Fauna et Flora Fennica for his MSc thesis and is co-supervised by Ossi Nokelainen (University of Jyväskylä).