Dr Kevin Healy

Phd, BA

 
researcher
 

Biography

I started my research career in Trinity College Dublin, were I did my undergraduate in Zoology. I did my PhD on the allometric scaling of predator prey interactions with Dr Andrew Jackson in Trinity College Dublin. I then did a two year post doctorate Fellowship working on the macroecology of animal life history strategies with Prof Yvonne Buckley in Trinity College Dublin. I was then a Marie Curie Fellow in St Andrews University where I worked on the allometric scaling of scavenging behaviour with Prof Graeme Ruxton. I then joined The National University of Ireland Galway as a lecturer in Zoology in January 2019.

Research Interests

My research is mainly in the fields of macroecology and comparative ecology and evolution. To date I have worked on the topics including the macroecology of life history strategies in animals, the energetics of scavenging and the application of stable isotopes for determining diets.

Peer Reviewed Journals

  Year Publication
(2020) 'Diet breadth mediates the prey specificity of venom potency in snakes'
Lyons, Keith, Michel M. Dugon, and Kevin Healy (2020) 'Diet breadth mediates the prey specificity of venom potency in snakes'. Toxins, [Details]
(2020) 'A system wide approach to managing zoo collections for visitor attendance and in situ conservation'
Andrew Mooney, Dalia A Conde, Kevin Healy, Yvonne M Buckley (2020) 'A system wide approach to managing zoo collections for visitor attendance and in situ conservation'. Nature Communications, [Details]
(2019) 'Snake venom potency and yield are associated with prey‐evolution, predator metabolism and habitat structure'
Kevin Healy, Chris Carbone, Andrew L. Jackson (2019) 'Snake venom potency and yield are associated with prey‐evolution, predator metabolism and habitat structure'. Ecology Letters, 22 :527-537 [DOI] [ARAN Link] [Details]
(2019) 'Animal life history is shaped by the pace of life and the distribution of age-specific mortality and reproduction'
Healy, K;Ezard, THG;Jones, OR;Salguero-Gomez, R;Buckley, YM (2019) 'Animal life history is shaped by the pace of life and the distribution of age-specific mortality and reproduction'. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 3 [DOI] [ARAN Link] [Details]
(2018) 'SIDER: an R package for predicting trophic discrimination factors of consumers based on their ecology and phylogenetic relatedness'
Kevin Healy, Thomas Guillerme, Sean B. A Kelly, Richard Inger, Stuart Bearhop, Andrew L Jackson (2018) 'SIDER: an R package for predicting trophic discrimination factors of consumers based on their ecology and phylogenetic relatedness'. Ecography, [DOI] [Details]
(2017) 'A recipe for scavenging in vertebrates–the natural history of a behaviour'
Adam Kane, Kevin Healy, Thomas Guillerme, Graeme D Ruxton, Andrew L Jackson (2017) 'A recipe for scavenging in vertebrates–the natural history of a behaviour'. Ecography, 40 (2):324-334 [DOI] [Details]
(2016) 'Body size as a driver of scavenging in theropod dinosaurs'
Adam Kane, Kevin Healy, Graeme D Ruxton, Andrew L Jackson (2016) 'Body size as a driver of scavenging in theropod dinosaurs'. American Naturalist, 187 (6):706-716 [DOI] [Details]
(2016) 'Navigating the complexity of ecological stability'
Ian Donohue, Helmut Hillebrand, José M Montoya, Owen L Petchey, Stuart L Pimm, Mike S Fowler, Kevin Healy, Andrew L Jackson, Miguel Lurgi, Deirdre McClean, Nessa E O'Connor, Eoin J O'Gorman, Qiang Yang (2016) 'Navigating the complexity of ecological stability'. Ecology Letters, 19 (9):1172-1185 [Details]
(2015) 'Eusociality but not fossoriality drives longevity in small mammals'
Kevin Healy (2015) 'Eusociality but not fossoriality drives longevity in small mammals'. Proceedings Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 282 (1806) [Details]
(2014) 'Ecology and mode-of-life explain lifespan variation in birds and mammals'
Kevin Healy, Thomas Guillerme, Sive Finlay, Adam Kane, Seán BA Kelly, Deirdre McClean, David J Kelly, Ian Donohue, Andrew L Jackson, Natalie Cooper (2014) 'Ecology and mode-of-life explain lifespan variation in birds and mammals'. Proceedings Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 281 (1784) [Details]
(2013) 'On the dimensionality of ecological stability'
Ian Donohue, Owen L Petchey, José M Montoya, Andrew L Jackson, Luke McNally, Mafalda Viana, Kevin Healy, Miguel Lurgi, Nessa E O'Connor, Mark C Emmerson (2013) 'On the dimensionality of ecological stability'. Ecology Letters, 16 (4) [DOI] [Details]
(2013) 'Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information'
Kevin Healy, Luke McNally, Graeme D. Ruxton, Natalie Cooper, Andrew L. Jackson (2013) 'Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information'. Animal Behaviour, 86 :685-696 [Details]

Book Chapters

  Year Publication
(2019) 'My family and other animals: Human demography under a comparative cross-species lens'
Owen R Jones, Thomas HG Ezard, Claire Dooley, Kevin Healy, Dave J Hodgson, Markus Mueller, Stuart Townley, Roberto Salguero-Gomez (2019) 'My family and other animals: Human demography under a comparative cross-species lens' In: Human Evolutionary Demography. UK: Open Book Publishers Cambridge. [Details]

Computer Program

  Year Publication
(2014) mulTree: a package for running MCMCglmm analysis on multiple trees.
Thomas Guillerme, Kevin Healy (2014) mulTree: a package for running MCMCglmm analysis on multiple trees. Computer Program [DOI] [Details]

Modules Taught

  Term/Year Module Title Module Code Subject / Desc
2019 CONCEPTS IN POPULATION & COMMUNITY ECOLOGY ZO320
2019 Invertebrate Biology ZO208