Overview
I'm a mature student who chose to end a working life clearing invoices to study for a degree in Zoology at the University of Exeter's Cornwall campus. My undergraduate research project investigated the relationship between egg traits and fledging success in a local population of jackdaws and was supervised by Dr Alex Thornton. Since moving to Cornwall, I got to know some of its less popular residents: I spent the duration of my undergraduate degree living alongside a large colony of herring gulls. Having had a long-standing interest in animal behaviour and cognition, their lingering presence in the face of anthopogenic change struck me as an excellent opportunity to study the ways by which these seabirds thrive in urban environments. My Masters research is co-supervised by Dr Neeltje Boogert and Dr Laura Kelley and aims to test the responses of herring gulls to human behavioural cues.
Qualifications
2018: BSc Zoology, University of Exeter
Publications
Key publications | Publications by category | Publications by year
Publications by category
Journal articles
Goumas M, Boogert N, Kelley L (In Press). Urban herring gulls use human behavioural cues to locate food.
Royal Society Open Science Full text.
Goumas M, Burns I, Kelley LA, Boogert NJ (2019). Herring gulls respond to human gaze direction.
Biol Lett,
15(8).
Abstract:
Herring gulls respond to human gaze direction.
Human-wildlife conflict is one of the greatest threats to species populations worldwide. One species facing national declines in the UK is the herring gull (Larus argentatus), despite an increase in numbers in urban areas. Gulls in urban areas are often considered a nuisance owing to behaviours such as food-snatching. Whether urban gull feeding behaviour is influenced by human behavioural cues, such as gaze direction, remains unknown. We therefore measured the approach times of herring gulls to a food source placed in close proximity to an experimenter who either looked directly at the gull or looked away. We found that only 26% of targeted gulls would touch the food, suggesting that food-snatching is likely to be conducted by a minority of individuals. When gulls did touch the food, they took significantly longer to approach when the experimenter's gaze was directed towards them compared with directed away. However, inter-individual behaviour varied greatly, with some gulls approaching similarly quickly in both treatments, while others approached much more slowly when the experimenter was looking at them. These results indicate that reducing human-herring gull conflict may be possible through small changes in human behaviour, but will require consideration of behavioural differences between individual gulls.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Publications by year
In Press
Goumas M, Boogert N, Kelley L (In Press). Urban herring gulls use human behavioural cues to locate food.
Royal Society Open Science Full text.
2019
Goumas M, Burns I, Kelley LA, Boogert NJ (2019). Herring gulls respond to human gaze direction.
Biol Lett,
15(8).
Abstract:
Herring gulls respond to human gaze direction.
Human-wildlife conflict is one of the greatest threats to species populations worldwide. One species facing national declines in the UK is the herring gull (Larus argentatus), despite an increase in numbers in urban areas. Gulls in urban areas are often considered a nuisance owing to behaviours such as food-snatching. Whether urban gull feeding behaviour is influenced by human behavioural cues, such as gaze direction, remains unknown. We therefore measured the approach times of herring gulls to a food source placed in close proximity to an experimenter who either looked directly at the gull or looked away. We found that only 26% of targeted gulls would touch the food, suggesting that food-snatching is likely to be conducted by a minority of individuals. When gulls did touch the food, they took significantly longer to approach when the experimenter's gaze was directed towards them compared with directed away. However, inter-individual behaviour varied greatly, with some gulls approaching similarly quickly in both treatments, while others approached much more slowly when the experimenter was looking at them. These results indicate that reducing human-herring gull conflict may be possible through small changes in human behaviour, but will require consideration of behavioural differences between individual gulls.
Abstract.
Author URL.
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