PhD Studentship: The evolution of collective conflict in wild banded mongooses - PhD (UKRI Funded)

The University of Exeter’s Centre for Ecology and Conservation is inviting applications for a PhD studentship funded by UKRI to commence on 22 September 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter. For eligible students the studentship will cover Home or International tuition fees plus an annual tax-free stipend of at least £19,237 for 3 years full-time, or pro rata for part-time study. The student would be based in the Centre for Ecology and Conservation in the Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy at the Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

This is a 3 year PhD studentship which forms part of the INTERGROUP project, a project selected for funding by the European Research Council (ERC) and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the UK under the Horizon Europe Guarantee Scheme.

The evolution of intergroup conflict has become a topic of intense research in organisms ranging from microbes to ants to chimpanzees, and in both ancestral and modern humans. Much of this attention has focused on the potential for warfare – defined broadly as lethal or injurious intergroup conflict – to favour the evolution of altruism and cooperation within groups. However, testing this idea has proved difficult because fights between animal groups are unpredictable and fast moving and hard to study in the wild. This project will use drones (UAVs), AI tracking from videos, and life history analysis to study individual and collective intergroup conflict behaviour in wild banded mongooses at our study site in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. In this species groups are highly territorial and engage in frequent aggressive intergroup interactions which involve the risk of injury or even death. The project will test evolutionary models of conflict behaviour, reveal how individuals coordinate fighting behaviour and measure the individual fitness consequences of conflict participation. The broader aim is to better understand the causes and consequences of intergroup conflict in animal societies and its role in social evolution.

The successful applicant will be based at our lab in Cornwall, UK but will be required to spend significant periods (up to several months) at our long-term field project in Uganda to collect behavioural and life history data, working in with an experienced local field team and collaborating researchers. They will join a multi-institution team in the UK and Germany working on the evolution of intergroup conflict using diverse empirical systems and theoretical approaches.

The successful applicant will be able to work independently (with appropriate training and supervision) to pursue experiments and research objectives in the UK and Uganda; contribute to long-term data collection on the field project, analyse and write up data for publication and present results at conferences and other events.

For students who require a visa to study in the UK, this studentship also provides additional funds to help with visa fees and health surcharge costs. Successful applicants will need to initially pay the costs of these fees themselves and top-up funding to cover these costs will be provided upon registration with the University.

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