Chris Perrins | |
---|---|
Born | [4] | 11 May 1935
Education | Charterhouse School |
Alma mater |
|
Spouse |
Mary Ceresole Carslake
(m. 1963) |
Awards | Godman-Salvin Medal, 2018 RSPB Medal, 1992 |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Ornithology |
Institutions | |
Thesis | Some factors influencing brood-size and populations in tits (1963) |
Doctoral advisor | David Lack[1] |
Doctoral students | |
Website | zoo |
Christopher Miles Perrins, LVO FRS[5] (born 11 May 1935)[4][6] is Emeritus Fellow of the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at the University of Oxford, Emeritus Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford[7] and His Majesty's Warden of the Swans since 1993.[4][7][8]
Perrins was educated at Charterhouse School and Queen Mary College[4] where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology in 1957.[4] He completed his postgraduate study and research at the University of Oxford where he was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1963 for research on brood size in tits supervised by David Lack.[1]
Perrins research interests are in the population dynamics and breeding biology of birds, particularly tits (Paridae),[1][9] mute swans[10][11] and seabirds on Skomer and Skokholm.[7][12][13] He investigated animal lead poisoning of swans from lead shot.[12] He is renowned for his work on avian population ecology and, in particular, reproductive rates. He has made a number of important contributions to the long-term study of the great tit at Wytham Woods[14] — an area of mixed woodland established in 1947 by evolutionary biologist David Lack – one of the most famous studies in population ecology.[5]
He was the first to discover that avian clutch size – the number of eggs laid in a single nesting – in great tits has a remarkably high heritability and that the likelihood of the survival of young birds can be traced back to nutrition in the nest.[5] Perrins also demonstrated that females lay a clutch of an appropriate size for their ability to feed.[5][15] He supervised several successful DPhil students at Oxford including Matt Ridley[3] and Tim Birkhead.[2]
According to Scopus,[16] As of 2016[update] his most cited journal articles have been published in Ibis,[17][18] Nature,[19] Science[9] and the Journal of Animal Ecology.[20]
Perrins has received a number of awards for his research, including the Godman-Salvin Medal of the British Ornithologists' Union in 1988, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) Medal in 1992.[citation needed] In 1993, he was appointed as the first Warden of the Swans in the Royal Household, playing an important role in the annual Swan Upping ceremony. This was a new office in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, created in 1993. Other awards and honours include:[7]