Dr John D. Goss-Custard is a British behavioural ecologist; he was one of the first scientists to carry out field work on

foraging Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animal's fitness because it plays an important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce. Foraging theory is a branch of behavioral ecology that studies the foraging behavi ...

behaviour making use of optimising models, specifically the optimal diet model. After completing a BSc degree in Zoology at the

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

, he moved to the

University of Aberdeen , mottoeng = The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom , established = , type = Public research universityAncient university , endowment = £58.4 million (2021) , budget ...

to carry out research for a PhD degree, which he was awarded in 1966. The University of Aberdeen awarded him its

DSc DSC may refer to: Academia * Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) * District Selection Committee, an entrance exam in India * Doctor of Surgical Chiropody, superseded in the 1960s by Doctor of Podiatric Medicine Educational institutions * Dalton State Col ...

degree in 1987. Goss-Custard's PhD was based on the study of foraging in the

Common Redshank The common redshank or simply redshank (''Tringa totanus'') is a Eurasian wader in the large family Scolopacidae. Taxonomy The common redshank was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ...

. Subsequently, he worked at the

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) is a centre for excellence in environmental science across water, land and air. The organisation has a long history of investigating, monitoring and modelling environmental change, and its science ma ...

's Furzebrook Research Station at

Wareham, Dorset Wareham ( ) is a historic market town and, under the name Wareham Town, a civil parish, in the English county of Dorset. The town is situated on the River Frome eight miles (13 km) southwest of Poole. Situation and geography The town is bu ...

, leading an extensive project on the foraging of overwintering

Eurasian Oystercatcher The Eurasian oystercatcher (''Haematopus ostralegus'') also known as the common pied oystercatcher, or palaearctic oystercatcher, or (in Europe) just oystercatcher, is a wader in the oystercatcher bird family Haematopodidae. It is the most widesp ...

s on the estuary of the

River Exe The River Exe ( ) in England rises at Exe Head, near the village of Simonsbath, on Exmoor in Somerset, from the Bristol Channel coast, but flows more or less directly due south, so that most of its length lies in Devon. It flows for 60 mile ...

. This project led to one of the first uses of

agent-based modelling An agent-based model (ABM) is a computational model for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous agents (both individual or collective entities such as organizations or groups) in order to understand the behavior of a system and wha ...

to predict ecological relationships in an extended landscape; the model, developed for the Exe estuary, was subsequently tested successfully on

the Wash The Wash is a rectangular bay and multiple estuary at the north-west corner of East Anglia on the East coast of England, where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire and both border the North Sea. One of Britain's broadest estuaries, it is fed by the riv ...

. This work was surveyed in a book that he edited. Goss-Custard retired from his post at CEH in 2002. Although he did not hold a substantive university post, Goss-Custard held an honorary position at the

University of Exeter , mottoeng = "We Follow the Light" , established = 1838 - St Luke's College1855 - Exeter School of Art1863 - Exeter School of Science 1955 - University of Exeter (received royal charter) , type = Public , ...

for many years, and is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Bournemouth.http://individualecology.bournemouth.ac.uk/people.html, Downloaded 4 March 2017 He co-supervised PhD degrees with colleagues at the University of Exeter and also the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

References

External links

Curriculum Vitae
Alumni of the University of Bristol Alumni of the University of Aberdeen Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{Ecology-bio-stub