Professor Clare McArthur is the Professor of Behavioural Ecology in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, at the University of Sydney. She leads the McArthur Behavioural Ecology Lab, which investigates fundamental questions in animal foraging behaviour, focusing on mammalian herbivores such as common brushtail possums, swamp wallabies, koalas, and bare-nosed wombats. McArthur's research integrates plant-herbivore interactions with predator-prey dynamics, examining how foraging animals navigate trade-offs between accessing nutritious food and mitigating risks from predators and parasites. Her studies span foraging stages from patch selection and visitation to departure decisions, driven by both ultimate factors like risks and rewards and proximate cues such as sensory information, heuristics, and problem-solving abilities. Field-based approaches using motion-triggered cameras allow observation of wild animals with minimal disturbance.

Key research themes include the influence of olfactory cues on foraging efficiency, individual personality differences in dietary specialisation, and applications to conservation challenges like protecting vegetation from browsing damage and managing urban wildlife health risks from gut parasites. McArthur has obtained major funding through Australian Research Council grants, including a 2024 Discovery Project worth $670,775 titled 'Using Plant Odour to Manage Herbivores' and an earlier Linkage Project LE0883055. She was a key member of the Sensory Conservation Team that received the 2024 University of Sydney Eureka Prize for Sustainability Research. Notable publications encompass 'Olfactory misinformation provides refuge to palatable plants from browsing mammals' (Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2024), 'Olfactory Landscape Concept: A Key Source of Past, Present, and Future Research' (BioScience, 2022), 'Animal personality drives individual dietary specialisation across multiple foraging scales' (Functional Ecology, 2021), 'The power of odour cues in shaping fine-scale search patterns of foraging mammalian herbivores' (Biology Letters, 2020), and 'Leaf odour cues enable non-random foraging by mammalian herbivores' (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2017). Previously serving as Associate Editor for Functional Ecology, her work has advanced understanding of behavioural responses in fragmented habitats and urban environments, with international collaborations extending to species like elephants and deer.

Professional Email: clare.mcarthur@sydney.edu.au