Dr. Joseph Tobias

Details

Name: Dr. Joseph Tobias
Position: Departmental Lecturer
Email: joseph.tobias@zoo.ox.ac.uk

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

After completing a PhD at Cambridge (1996), I worked with BirdLife International and IUCN, co-authoring a series of conservation action plans and books. I joined the EGI in January 2006, took up a Departmental Lectureship in January 2009, and became a Research Fellow of Somerville College in October 2009.

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

The broad framework of my research is ‘understanding and conserving biodiversity’. I am interested in integrating approaches from evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology, community ecology and macroecology to answer questions like:

How do animal signals and signalling behaviour evolve, and what is their role in speciation?
How do species interactions shape phenotypic evolution and spatial patterns of diversity?
What are the impacts of land use and climate change on tropical systems, and how can they be mitigated?

Further details about study systems and specific projects can be found in my group pages: Tropical Ecology and Conservation Biology.

MEDIA AND OUTREACH

I am interested in communicating about science and conservation to the public. My work has been widely covered in newspapers, on radio and on the web (see below), and features in several education sites (e.g.Today’s Science). I have written popular articles about tropical research and ornithology (e.g. 1, 2), and produced local and regional field guides and education materials for tropical countries (e.g. hummingbirds; antbirds; Bolivian birds).

OTHER INFORMATION

I am a Research Associate of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, a Senior Research Fellow of the Centre for Tropical Research (University of California, Los Angeles), and a member of the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests. I convene undergraduate courses on Evolutionary Ecology and Quantitative Methods, and teach on the annual undergraduate fieldcourses at Orielton, Pembrokeshire, and Danum Valley, Borneo. For a gallery of images, pdfs, and more information about ongoing projects www.neomorphus.com.

SELECTED PAPERS

Pigot, A., Tobias, J.A. 2012. Species interactions constrain geographic range expansion over evolutionary time. Ecology Letters 63: 330–338 | Read paper | Press release

Tobias, J.A., Montgomerie, R., Lyon, B. 2012. The evolution of female ornaments and weaponry: sexual selection, social selection and ecological competition. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B. 367: 2274-2293 | Read paper

Salisbury, C., Seddon, N., Cooney, C., Tobias, J.A. 2012. The latitudinal gradient in dispersal constraints: ecological specialisation drives diversification in tropical birds. Ecology Letters 15: 847-855. | Read paper

Derryberry, E.P., Seddon, N., Claramunt, S., Tobias, J.A., Baker, A., Aleixo, A., Brumfield, R.T. 2012. Correlated evolution of beak morphology and song in the Neotropical woodcreeper radiation. Evolution 66: 2784–2797 | Read paper

Tobias, J.A., Gamarra-Toledo, V., Garcia-Olaechea, D., Pulgarin, P.C., Seddon, N. 2011. Year-round resource defence and the evolution of male and female song in suboscine birds: social armaments are mutual ornaments. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 24: 2118-2138. | Read paper

Hoffmann, M. and 163 others including J.A. Tobias 2010. The impact of conservation on the status of the world’s vertebrates. Science Read Paper | Nature News | Guardian | Wall St Journal | LA Times

Tobias, J.A., Aben, J., Brumfield, R.T., Derryberry, E., Halfwerk, W., Slabbekoorn, H. & Seddon, N. 2010. Song divergence by sensory drive in Amazonian birds. Evolution 64: 2820–2839. | Read Paper | Front cover

Seddon, N., Tobias, J.A. 2010. Character displacement from the receiver’s perspective: species and mate-recognition despite convergent signals in suboscine birds. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 277: 2475-2483. | Read Paper

Tobias, J.A., Seddon, N. 2009. Signal jamming mediates sexual conflict in a duetting bird. Current Biology 19: 577-582. | Read Paper | Washington Post | New York Times | Sunday Telegraph

Tobias, J.A., Bates, J.M., Hackett, S., Seddon, N. 2008. Comment on “The Latitudinal Gradient in Recent Speciation and Extinction Rates of Birds and Mammals”. Science 319: 901c. | Read Paper

Seddon, N., Merrill, R. M., Tobias, J.A. 2008. Sexually selected traits predict patterns of species richness in a diverse clade of suboscine birds. American Naturalist 171: 620-631. | Read Paper