Mark Briffa is Professor of Animal Behaviour at the University of Plymouth, U.K. He has studied the behaviour of hermit crabs since 1995. He gained a PhD on this topic at Queen’s University Belfast and conducted post-doctoral research there, before moving to Plymouth in 2004 for a lectureship in marine biology. As well as studying the effects of human impacts on behaviour he is also interested in animal contests and animal personality, which he studies in hermit crabs, sea anemones and other marine animals.