To celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month the Museum is sharing the stories of 27 inspirational women, alongside the animals they work with the most.

Dr Kiyoko Gotanda

Department of Zoology

“My research centres on how animals are adapting to human influences such as urbanisation. Permanent human populations now live on four of the Galápagos Islands. For animals, urbanisation drastically changes the environment in different ways, such as what they eat.

Galápagos finches have evolved several species that allow each species to eat different types of food items (e.g. different size seeds, flower nectar, or insects). With the introduction of human foods via urbanisation, the finches are adapting by choosing human foods which can affect things such as the shapes of their beaks and their gut bacteria.”

Discover more about Kiyoko’s research here.

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