Professor Claire Spottiswoode
Project leader, University of Cambridge and University of Cape Town
Projecto Sego Leadership Team
Iahaia “Mele” Buanachique
Mele is a resident of Mbamba village and been a honey-hunter since his early teens. He gets involved in night honey-harvests from baobab trees as well as following honeyguides and harvesting honey in the day. He has helped us with field work (especially following honeyguides, trapping honeyguides, and radio tracking) since 2017, when he was also the winner of our annual prize for the best data collector.
Musaji Muamedi
Musaji was born and raised in Nkuti village. He has honey-hunted for over a decade and has worked closely with us since 2015, when he helped extensively with playback experiments. Over the years he has helped with numerous field experiments, honeyguide trapping, and camera trapping. His extraordinary ability to spot bees’ nest is much admired. He has been part of our leadership team since its inception in 2017.
Carvalho Issa Nanguar
Carvalho was born and raised in Mbamba village and learnt to honey-hunt in his teens from his step father, Seliano Rucunua. He often honey-hunts together with his family; one of his wives is also a talented honey-hunter, and he and she both started working with the project in 2018. Since then Carvalho has helped us with many of our field experiments, in particular with honeyguides trapping and playback transects.
Seliano Alberto Runcunua
Seliano is a life-long ‘professional’ honey-hunter who grew up to the south of Niassa and first moved to Mbamba village to find bees and harvest honey in the expansive woodlands of the reserve. He regularly honey-hunts with his wife, Fatima, who is also part of our team, and his passion for all things honey-hunting is truly infectious. He first started collecting data for the project in 2018 and won our annual prize for the best data collector in 2019, when he also joined our leadership group.
Projecto Sego Data Collection Team
Collaborators
Professor Sally Archibald
School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
We work with Sally on understanding the landscape consequences of the honeyguide-human mutualism, in particular via its impact on fire regimes.
Dr Colleen Begg & Keith Begg
Niassa Carnivore Project, Mozambique
We have collaborated closely with Colleen and Keith on understanding reciprocal communication between humans and honeyguides, and they and their team at the Mariri Environmental Centre continue to crucially inspire, advise and support many aspects of our research.
Professor Robin Crewe
Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, South Africa
We work with Robin and his team on understanding the influence of the honeyguide-human mutualism on bee ecology.
Dr Pietro d’Amelio
FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, South Africa
We work with Pietro on bioacoustic analyses to understand cultural variation in the signals human give to honeyguides.
Celestino Dauda
Niassa Carnivore Project, Mozambique
We work with Dauda on mapping honey-hunting culture in communities throughout the Niassa National Reserve.
Dr Lynn Dicks
Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, UK
We work with Lynn on understanding the influence of the honeyguide-human mutualism on pollination ecosystem services.
Professor Timm Hoffman
Plant Conservation Unit, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town
We work with Timm on understanding the landscape consequences of the honeyguide-human mutualism, in particular via its impact on tree ecology.
Hermenegildo Matimele
National Herbarium, Maputo, Mozambique
We work with Hermenegildo on understanding the landscape consequences of the honeyguide-human mutualism, in particular via its impact on tree ecology.
Dr Colleen Seymour
South African National Biodiversity Institute, Cape Town, South Africa
We work with Colleen on understanding the influence of the honeyguide-human mutualism on pollination ecosystem services.
Dr Brian Wood
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany
We collaborate closely with Brian in many aspects of our work, including understanding the impact on the honeyguide-human mutualism of cultural variation in human signals in Mozambique and Tanzania, and the mutualism’s impact on human foraging ecology.
Past Colleagues
Orlando Ncuela
Projecto Sego local data manager
Antonio Ngovene
Intern, Edward O Wilson Laboratory of Biodiversity, Gorongosa National Park
Dr James St Clair
Postdoc, University of Cambridge