Alasdair Houston

Q: What Schools Are Affiliated With Alasdair Houston

Alasdair Houston is affiliated with the following schools: University of Bristol, University of Oxford

Alasdair Houston's AcademicInfluence.com Rankings

Alasdair Houston

Biology

#5331

World Rank

#7787

Historical Rank

Evolutionary Biology

#135

World Rank

#151

Historical Rank

biology Degrees

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Biology

Alasdair Houston's Degrees

Bachelors Zoology University of Oxford
PhD Zoology University of Oxford

Why Is Alasdair Houston Influential?

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According to Wikipedia, Alasdair Iain Houston is an English evolutionary biologist and ecologist known for his work in behavioural ecology. He is Emeritus Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2012.

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Alasdair Houston's Published Works

Number of citations in a given year to any of this author's works

Total number of citations to an author for the works they published in a given year. This highlights publication of the most important work(s) by the author

Published Works

The behavioural ecology of personality: consistent individual differences from an adaptive perspective (2004) (1191)
State-dependent life histories (1996) (787)
General results concerning the trade-off between gaining energy and avoiding predation (1993) (633)
The Common Currency for Behavioral Decisions (1986) (581)
Starvation and Predation as Factors Limiting Population Size (1987) (524)
The sexual selection continuum (2002) (438)
The value of fat reserves and the tradeoff between starvation and predation (1990) (387)
Models of adaptive behaviour (1999) (383)
Incorporating rules for responding into evolutionary games (1999) (374)
Conflict between parents over care. (2005) (367)
Dynamic models in behavioural and evolutionary ecology (1988) (360)
Capital breeding and income breeding: their meaning, measurement, and worth. (2009) (294)
Integrating function and mechanism. (2009) (267)
Optimal foraging and learning (1985) (255)
A theoretical investigation of the fat reserves and mortality levels of small birds in winter (1993) (245)
Risk-sensitive foraging: A review of the theory (1992) (243)
The optimal allocation of time during the diving cycle (1992) (242)
Models of Adaptive Behaviour: An Approach Based on State (1999) (238)
Foraging routines of small birds in winter: a theoretical investigation (1994) (234)
Evolutionarily stable levels of vigilance as a function of group size (1992) (230)
A framework for the functional analysis of behaviour (1988) (227)
Memory and the efficient use of information. (1987) (222)
The coevolution of choosiness and cooperation (2008) (213)
Honeybees maximize efficiency by not filling their crop (1985) (211)
Population fluctuations, reproductive costs and life-history tactics in female soay sheep (1996) (210)
Genetic algorithms and evolution. (1990) (202)
A sequential approach to risk-taking (1982) (196)
Optimal annual routines: behaviour in the context of physiology and ecology (2008) (194)
The evolution of decision rules in complex environments (2014) (190)
Optimal avian migration: A dynamic model of fuel stores and site use (1998) (181)
Variation in behaviour promotes cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma game (2004) (174)
Capital or income breeding? A theoretical model of female reproductive strategies (2007) (173)
Should young ever be better off with one parent than with two (2003) (167)
Partial preferences and foraging (1987) (167)
Optimal moult strategies in migratory birds (2008) (167)
The value of food: effects of open and closed economies (1989) (165)
An Evolutionary Approach to Offspring Desertion in Birds (1996) (161)
Evolution of trust and trustworthiness: social awareness favours personality differences (2008) (153)
The Effect of a Change in Foraging Options on Intake Rate and Predation Rate (1994) (152)
Singing to attract a mate: a stochastic dynamic game (1987) (152)
Deterioration, death and the evolution of reproductive restraint in late life (2009) (148)
Quantitative ethology : the state space approach (1981) (145)
Spatially explicit, individual-based, behavioural models of the annual cycle of two migratory goose populations (2000) (145)
Beyond the prisoner's dilemma: Toward models to discriminate among mechanisms of cooperation in nature. (1992) (140)
The timing of migration within the context of an annual routine (1998) (140)
A dynamic game-theoretic model of parental care. (2000) (135)
Phenotypic plasticity as a state-dependent life-history decision (1992) (133)
A general theory of central place foraging for single-prey loaders (1985) (132)
Some effects of energy costs on foraging strategies (1984) (130)
A general framework for understanding the effects of variability and interruptions on foraging behaviour (1987) (129)
The optimal allocation of time over the dive cycle: an approach based on aerobic and anaerobic respiration (1996) (125)
Cues, strategies, and outcomes: how migrating vertebrates track environmental change (2014) (121)
Optimization of Locomotion (1992) (119)
Learning rules, matching and frequency dependence (1987) (114)
The effect of energy reserves and food availability on optimal immune defence (2007) (113)
Sexual Conflict about Parental Care: The Role of Reserves (2002) (112)
Mammalian choices: combining fast-but-inaccurate and slow-but-accurate decision-making systems (2008) (110)
Multiple patterns of parental care (1999) (110)
A self-consistent approach to paternity and parental effort. (2002) (110)
Time Allocation between Territories and Flocks and Owner-Satellite Conflict in Foraging Pied Wagtails, Motacilla alba (1983) (109)
Pastoralist strategies for survival in unpredictable environments: A model of herd composition that maximises household viability (1989) (107)
Do we expect natural selection to produce rational behaviour? (2007) (104)
Avian daily foraging patterns: Effects of digestive constraints and variability (2005) (104)
Optimal Foraging and Cryptic Prey (1980) (104)
The ideal free distribution when competitive abilities differ: an approach based on statistical mechanics (1988) (102)
John Maynard Smith and the importance of consistency in evolutionary game theory (2006) (102)
Decision-making under uncertainty: biases and Bayesians (2011) (100)
Optimizing fat reserves over the entire winter: a dynamic model (1994) (100)
Models of optimal avian migration: state time and predation (1998) (99)
Optimality Models in Behavioral Biology (2001) (97)
Annual routines of non‐migratory birds: optimal moult strategies (2006) (96)
Ideal free distributions under predation risk (1996) (95)
When is it adaptive to be patient? A general framework for evaluating delayed rewards (2012) (95)
Teaching with Evaluation in Ants (2007) (94)
The hidden cost of information in collective foraging (2005) (93)
Consequences of habitat loss at migratory stopover sites: a theoretical investigation (1999) (92)
Optimal daily routines of singing and foraging in a bird singing to attract a mate (2004) (91)
Foraging currencies, metabolism and behavioural routines. (2014) (87)
Foraging Strategy, Worker Mortality, and the Growth of the Colony in Social Insects (1988) (86)
A theoretical analysis of the energetic costs and consequences of parental care decisions. (2002) (82)
A Theoretical Investigation of the Effect of Latitude on Avian Life Histories (2008) (82)
A general technique for computing evolutionarily stable strategies based on errors in decision-making. (1997) (80)
On evolutionary explanations of cognitive biases. (2013) (80)
Flight costs, flight range and the stopover ecology of migrating birds (1997) (79)
Central-place foraging in honey bees: the effect of travel time and nectar flow on crop filling (1986) (79)
Acquisition and maintenance costs in the long-term regulation of avian fat reserves (1997) (78)
Dynamic models of mass-dependent predation risk-sensitive foraging and premigratory fattening in birds (1994) (77)
Capital and income breeding: the role of food supply. (2014) (75)
A simple model of information use in the exploitation of patchily distributed food (1985) (75)
Reproductive success of dunnocks prunella modularis in a variable mating system ii. conflicts of interest among breeding adults (1986) (71)
Animal camouflage: compromise or specialize in a 2 patch-type environment? (2007) (71)
Host Discrimination in Parasitic Wasps: When is it Advantageous? (1993) (70)
Dyar's Rule and the Investment Principle: optimal moulting strategies if feeding rate is size-dependent and growth is discontinuous (1997) (70)
Evolutionary models of metabolism, behaviour and personality (2010) (69)
Natural selection and context-dependent values (1997) (67)
Parental effort and paternity (1995) (66)
An Adaptive Response to Uncertainty Generates Positive and Negative Contrast Effects (2013) (64)
Does natural selection favour the Rescorla-Wagner rule? (2012) (64)
Optimal departure fat loads and stopover site use in avian migration: an analytical model (1994) (63)
Patterns in the diving behaviour of the pochard, Aythya ferina: a test of an optimality model (1994) (62)
Optimal foraging by parent birds feeding dependent young (1987) (62)
Currencies For Foraging Based on Energetic Gain (1997) (60)
Migration speed and scheduling of annual events by migrating birds in relation to climate change (2007) (59)
Interference and the ideal free distribution (1995) (58)
State-dependent life history evolution in Soay sheep: dynamic modelling of reproductive scheduling. (1996) (57)
Natural selection can favour ‘irrational’ behaviour (2014) (57)
Generalized Optimal Risk Allocation: Foraging and Antipredator Behavior in a Fluctuating Environment (2012) (57)
Fighting for food: a dynamic version of the Hawk-Dove game (2005) (56)
Violations of transitivity under fitness maximization (2007) (54)
A theoretical investigation of the effect of predators on foraging behaviour and energy reserves (2005) (54)
A model of risk-sensitive foraging for a reproducing animal (1991) (54)
The choice of two prey types that minimises the probability of starvation (1985) (53)
CHAPTER 6 – Behavioral Resilience and Its Relation to Demand Functions (1980) (51)
When to parasitize? A dynamic optimization model of reproductive strategies in a cooperative breeder. (2004) (50)
State-dependent life-history theory and its implications for optimal clutch size (1992) (50)
Assessing predation risk: optimal behaviour and rules of thumb. (2003) (50)
On the Evolution and Optimality of Mood States (2013) (49)
Evolutionarily stable strategies in the repeated hawk–dove game (1991) (48)
Demand curves and welfare (1997) (47)
A model for the evolutionary maintenance of monogyny in spiders. (2008) (47)
Should I stay or should I go? Testing optimality models of stopover decisions in migrating birds (1999) (46)
Energetic constraints and foraging efficiency (1995) (46)
A General Model for Time-minimising Avian Migration (1997) (45)
A positive feedback model for switching between two activities (1985) (44)
The Starvation-Predation Trade-Off Predicts Trends in Body Size, Muscularity, and Adiposity between and within Taxa (2012) (43)
Defence reactions in aphids: the influence of state and future reproductive success (1994) (43)
Credible threats and promises. (2002) (43)
The cost of disturbance: a waste of time and energy? (2012) (42)
State-dependent ideal free distributions (1990) (42)
The variability of behaviour and constrained optimization (1985) (40)
Simple learning rules to cope with changing environments (2008) (39)
Optimality principles and behavior: It's all for the best (1981) (38)
Do parents make independent decisions about desertion? (2002) (38)
Adjustments in the diving time budgets of tufted duck and pochard: is there evidence for a mix of metabolic pathways? (1996) (37)
The influence of mortality on the behaviour that maximizes reproductive success in a patchy environment (1986) (37)
The use of a time and energy budget model of a parent bird to investigate limits to fledging mass in the Thick-billed Murre (1996) (37)
Selecting for the con in consciousness (1990) (37)
Optimal foraging for multiple nutrients in an unpredictable environment. (2011) (37)
The maximization of overall reinforcement rate on concurrent chains. (1987) (37)
Environmental variability can select for optimism or pessimism. (2011) (37)
Stability and value of male care for offspring: is it worth only half the trouble? (2007) (37)
The parental investment models of Maynard Smith: a retrospective and prospective view (2013) (36)
Risk-sensitive foraging theory and operant psychology. (1991) (36)
The analysis of the spacing of animals, with an example based on oystercatchers during the tidal cycle (1997) (34)
The optimal flight velocity for a bird exploiting patches of food (1986) (34)
Sperm Allocation Strategies and Female Resistance: A Unifying Perspective (2008) (33)
Foraging strategies in solitary parasitoids: The trade-off between female and offspring mortality risks (1994) (33)
Fatness and fitness: exposing the logic of evolutionary explanations for obesity (2016) (32)
The control of foraging decisions (1984) (32)
Combining Prey Choice and Patch Use—What Does Rate-maximizing Predict? (1993) (32)
Relative allocation on concurrent schedules can depend on schedule parameters when behavioral parameters are constant. (1987) (32)
The effects of background mortality on optimal reproduction in a seasonal environment. (2004) (32)
Optimal prey choice and discrimination time in the great tit (Parus major L.) (1980) (31)
Switching between resources and the ideal free distribution (1987) (31)
A Dynamic Model of Hypothermia as an Adaptive Response by Small Birds to Winter Conditions (2002) (31)
The ecological rationality of state-dependent valuation. (2012) (30)
Risk‐Averse Foraging in Bees: A Comment on the Mode of Harder and Real (1990) (30)
Foraging in the Context of Life-History : General Principles and Specific Models (1990) (30)
On the measurement of motivational variables (1976) (30)
Central-Place Foraging: Some Aspects of Prey Choice for Multiple-Prey Loaders (1985) (29)
The distribution of animals between resources: a compromise between equal numbers and equal intake rates (1995) (29)
Optimal annual routines: new tools for conservation biology? (2008) (29)
Optimal foraging and territorial defence in the Great Tit (Parus major) (1981) (29)
TERRITORY SIZE, PREY RENEWAL AND FEEDING RATES: INTERPRETATION OF OBSERVATIONS ON THE PIED WAGTAIL (MOTACILLA ALBA) BY SIMULATION (1985) (27)
Paying for information: partial loads in central place foragers (2006) (27)
Transitions and time-sharing (1982) (26)
Prey processing in central place foragers. (2000) (25)
The newt as an honest salesman (1978) (25)
If animals know their own fighting ability, the evolutionarily stable level of fighting is reduced. (2005) (25)
Female choice of matings to maximise parental care. (1997) (25)
Risk attitudes in a changing environment: An evolutionary model of the fourfold pattern of risk preferences. (2015) (24)
The strength of selection in the context of migration speed (2000) (24)
Dynamic kin selection (1994) (23)
The Value of a hoard: not just energy (1994) (23)
Understanding the placebo effect from an evolutionary perspective (2013) (23)
Mobility limits cooperation. (1993) (23)
State-dependent contests for food (1989) (23)
Should females prefer to mate with low-quality males? (2008) (23)
Clarifying the relationship between prospect theory and risk-sensitive foraging theory (2014) (22)
The effect of environmental variability on growth (1990) (22)
The optimal coyness game (2009) (22)
The efficiency of mass loss in breeding birds (1993) (21)
On the need for a sensitive analysis of optimization models, or, "This simulation is not as the former" (1992) (21)
Cooperation should not be assumed. (2006) (20)
What Currency Do Bumble Bees Maximize? (2010) (20)
Flying in the face of nature (2009) (20)
Is optimism optimal? Functional causes of apparent behavioural biases (2012) (20)
Timing of avian reproduction in unpredictable environments (2011) (19)
The effect of foraging parameters on the probability that a dive is successful (2003) (19)
Rick-sensitive foraging in common shrews: an interruption model and the effects of mean and variance in reward rate (1985) (18)
Adaptive learning can result in a failure to profit from good conditions: implications for understanding depression (2015) (18)
The effect of thermoregulatory substitution on optimal energy reserves of small birds in winter (2004) (18)
Is it better to give information, receive it, or be ignorant in a two-player game? (2006) (18)
Trust your gut: using physiological states as a source of information is almost as effective as optimal Bayesian learning (2018) (18)
Central-place foraging by humans: transport and processing (2011) (17)
Matching and ideal free distributions (2008) (17)
Parental effort in a mating system involving two males and two females (1994) (16)
Patch choice and population size (1997) (16)
The flight speed of parent birds feeding young (2006) (16)
Male rank and optimal lek size (1999) (16)
Quantifying male attractiveness (2003) (15)
The ideal free distribution with unequal competitors: the effects of modelling methods (1998) (15)
The Scaling of Diving Time Budgets: Insights from an Optimality Approach (2008) (15)
Cross inhibition improves activity selection when switching incurs time costs (2015) (15)
Optimal patch use by a territorial forager (1990) (14)
San Marco and evolutionary biology (2009) (14)
The state of Darwinian theory (2011) (14)
The starvation-predation trade-off shapes the strategic use of protein for energy during fasting. (2014) (14)
7 Decision Making What Can Evolution Do for Us ? (2012) (13)
Towards a model of the courtship of the smooth newttriturus vulgaris, with special emphasis on problems of observability in the simulation of behaviour (2006) (13)
An Evolutionary Perspective on Information Processing (2014) (13)
Parental care as a differential game: A dynamic extension of the Houston-Davies game (2007) (12)
A general expression for the reproductive value of information (2016) (12)
Measurement of mass change in breeding birds: A bibliography and discussion of measurement techniques (2006) (12)
Assessing models of optimal diving. (2011) (12)
In delay there lies no plenty (1988) (12)
Costs of Foraging Predispose Animals to Obesity-Related Mortality when Food Is Constantly Abundant (2015) (11)
The ideal free distribution: an analysis of the perceptual limit model (2002) (11)
It is optimal to be optimistic about survival (2012) (11)
Flocking behaviour of passerines: a dynamic model for the non-reproductive season (1991) (10)
Matching Behaviours and Rewards (2021) (10)
Unbiased individuals use valuable information when making decisions: a reply to Johnson and Fowler. (2013) (9)
Are the spandrels of San Marco really panglossian pendentives? (1997) (9)
Hummingbirds as net rate maximisers (1993) (9)
The influence of the food–predation trade-off on the foraging behaviour of central-place foragers (2015) (9)
Adaptive and non-adaptive models of depression: A comparison using register data on antidepressant medication during divorce (2017) (8)
Evolution of a flexible rule for foraging that copes with environmental variation (2015) (8)
Parent birds feeding young—To walk or to fly? (1990) (8)
A theoretical investigation into the direct and indirect effects of state on the risk of predation. (2001) (8)
Explaining individual variation in patterns of mass loss in breeding birds (2006) (8)
How does an individual's optimal behaviour depend on its quality? An analysis based on relative ability (2003) (8)
Economics of courtship-feeding in the European bee-eater (Merops apiaster) (1988) (7)
Evolution and Rationality: Natural selection and rational decisions (2012) (7)
Imperfectly optimal animals (1984) (7)
The Evolutionarily Stable Exploitation of a Renewing Resource (1995) (7)
From individual feeding performance to predicting population dynamics in barnacle geese (1998) (7)
Ydenberg's Model of Fledging Time: A Comment (1991) (7)
How did the Great Auk raise its young? (2010) (6)
Risk-sensitive foraging and temperature (1990) (6)
Models of diving and data from otters: comments on Nolet et al (1993) (1994) (6)
Scalar utility theory and proportional processing: What does it actually imply? (2016) (6)
Learning, exploitation and bias in games (2021) (5)
Prey size of single‐prey loaders as an indicator of prey abundance (2000) (5)
Comparing pleasure and pain: the fundamental mathematical equivalence of reward gain and shock reduction under variable interval schedules. (2012) (5)
A dynamic framework for the study of optimal birth intervals reveals the importance of sibling competition and mortality risks (2015) (4)
Evolutionary games and gambits (2013) (4)
Social information transmission and human biology (2006) (4)
Introduction. Adaptation to the annual cycle (2008) (4)
Offspring desertion in birds (1996) (4)
Delivering Food to a Central Place: Three Studies of Bee-Eaters ( Merops Apiaster ) (1987) (4)
When to change habitat (1989) (3)
How to Model Optimal Group Size in Social Carnivores (2020) (3)
Choice and preference-you can't always want what you get (1985) (3)
Demand curves, deprivation and welfare: a reply to Dawkins (1997) (2)
Non-monotonic dive to surface ratios: Comments on Walton et al. (1988) (2000) (2)
Game-theoretic models of parental care (1996) (2)
An evolutionary perspective on Hebb's reverberatory representations (1995) (2)
Animal Motivation.Patrick Colgan (1990) (2)
Gains v. losses, or context dependence generated by confusion? (2020) (2)
The cost imposed on a fishery by a seabird population (1992) (2)
Foraging strategies in solitary parasitoids: the between female and offspring mortality risks trade-off (1994) (2)
A critical analysis of the titration procedure introduced by Abrahams and Dill (1989) (1998) (2)
Optimal immunity over the annual cycle in nonmigratory birds (2006) (1)
From individual behaviour to population ecology: By W.J. Sutherland Oxford University Press, Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution, 1996. £39.50 hbk, £16.95 pbk (x + 213 pages) ISBN 0 19 854911 3 (1997) (1)
There's no such thing as a free lunch (1988) (1)
Optimal climbing flight in migrating birds: predictions in a stochastic environment (2001) (1)
Modelling Natural Action Selection: Do we expect natural selection to produce rational behaviour? (2011) (1)
Mechanistic models must link the field and the lab (2019) (1)
A Note on the Results of Barkan and Withiam on Simultaneous Choice (1991) (1)
From patch use to environmental conditions: Using theory to reconstruct the past (2019) (1)
Is quantum probability rational? (2013) (1)
Control theory in biology and experimental psychology By F. M. Toates. London: Hutchinson Educational (1975). £6·50 (1977) (1)
Is anything independent of selection? Reply from A.I. Houston. (1997) (1)
Decision rules in behavioural ecology (2000) (1)
Optimal gut size of small birds and its dependence on environmental and physiological parameters. (2018) (1)
The next state of the art (1991) (1)
The value of information in central-place foraging (2006) (1)
A critical evaluation of the index of patch quality (2021) (1)
Book Review: Advances in Behavioral Economics (1990) (1)
Selfishness reexamined: No man is an island (1989) (0)
Adaptive accounts of physiology and emotion (2000) (0)
Melioration and addiction (1996) (0)
your using as a source of information is almost as effective as optimal Bayesian learning. (2018) (0)
Mammalian decisions (2008) (0)
Optimal diving and oxygen use (2021) (0)
Scientific assessment of animal welfare: insights from psychology and cognitive science (2009) (0)
Optimal Birth Intervals model v1.0 (2015) (0)
BBSRC Animal Welfare Programme Workshop, Birmingham (2009) (0)
Genetics Adapted for the Behavioural Ecologist (1996) (0)
Matching, maximizing and melioration as alternative descriptions of behaviour (1991) (0)
“Consciousness” is the name of a nonentity (1990) (0)
Estimating oystercatcher mortality from foraging behaviour. (1996) (0)
in late life Deterioration , death and the evolution of reproductive restraint (2009) (0)
Mating systems and fluctuating asymmetry: Firm foundations? (2000) (0)
Behavioural specialization and learning in social networks (2022) (0)
The use of evolutionary analogies and the rejection of state variables by B. F. Skinner (1984) (0)
Biological adaptation in light of the Lewontin–Williams (a)symmetry (2022) (0)
Replacing homeostasis by optimization: preaching to the converted (1979) (0)
THE CASE AGAINST ALLEN'S GENERALIZA TION OF THE MA TCHING LA W ALASDAIR I. HOUSTON (2005) (0)
Mating systems, operational sex ratio and parental care (1998) (0)
Cues, strategies, and outcomes: how migrating vertebrates track environmental change (2014) (0)
Protean behaviour: by P.M. Driver and D.A. Humphries, Oxford University Press, 1988. £30.00 hbk (324 pages) ISBN 0 19 8571704 (1989) (0)
The evolution of decision rules in 1 complex environments 2 3 The Modelling Animal Decisions group (2016) (0)
Deposited in DRO : 30 May 2014 Version of attached le : Published Version Peer-review status of attached (2014) (0)
Testing the marginal value theorem (1984) (0)
The role of mortality risk in parental behaviour (2018) (0)
Timing of avian reproduction in unpredictable environments (2011) (0)
Effects of increased predation risk on the population dynamics of migratory birds: Optimal annual routine simulations (2006) (0)
State-Dependent Models and Behavior@@@Models of Adaptive Behaviour (2000) (0)
Book Review: The Role of Behavior in Evolution (1990) (0)
Why do birds get divorced (2002) (0)
The Ups and Downs of Placebos (2016) (0)
Optimal diving: physiology is not the issue (2011) (0)
The overall discount rate (2019) (0)
Dyar's Law is suboptimal: growth at the moult and instar durations in arthropods (1994) (0)
Cross inhibition of drives improves activity selection (2013) (0)
Gains v. losses, or context dependence generated by confusion? (2020) (0)
Stochasticity in foraging theory: risk and information (1982) (0)
Modelling feeding and drinking motivations: A way to improve welfare in domestic ruminants (2012) (0)
The influence of the food–predation trade-off on the foraging behaviour of central-place foragers (2015) (0)

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