Andrea Reid, M.Sc. Candidate

Current Research
Little is understood about how native species may find ways to survive among invasives. My MSc research examines areas on the margins of the invasive Nile perch’s (Lates niloticus) territory that are being exploited by native fish as a refuge (focusing on endangered haplochromine cichlids). I am investigating whether the differences in populations are based on subtle chemical and biological features by sampling fish and environmental factors in a series of wetland transects in central Uganda. My field work in Lake Nabugabo, a satellite of Lake Victoria, hopes to determine whether there is an optimal distance from the predator that enables the natives to thrive.

My BSc honours thesis at McGill University examined food patch depletion behaviour in a leaf-eating (folivorous) primate, the guereza (Colobus guereza) in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Unlike the sympatric red colobus (Procolobus rufomitratus), we found that guerezas do not functionally deplete patches of their preferred foods, which may be driven by a fundamental difference in the digestive physiologies of these two western Ugandan colobines.