Research conducted at the EGI is published in a broad range of international scientific journals. See the links below for highlights of recent published research.

Big personality birds find the best homes
A paper published in Journal of Animal Ecology clarifies the connection between individual personality and dispersal in great tits, suggesting that bold birds are better at finding higher-quality territories. Read paper | Press release

Lizard sex linked to climate
A study published in Nature shows that climate can drive evolutionary shifts in sex-determining systems in lizards. Read paper | Listen to podcast | Press release

Promiscuity and the evolution of cooperation in birds
A comparative study published in Nature suggests that promiscuity is an important factor explaining the transition to and from cooperative breeding in birds. Read paper | Press release | News & Views

Conservation offers hope for biodiversity decline
A study published in Science reveals that global biodiversity is increasingly threatened but that conservation is slowing the process. Read paper | Nature News | Guardian | Wall St Journal | LA Times

Is it a species?
Analysis of phenotypic divergence in a worldwide sample of sympatric bird species provides a basis for a novel system of taxonomic criteria. Read paper | Read reviews in Nature & Ibis

The value of longterm studies
A review published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution argues that long-term studies of individuals have contributed disproportionately to our understanding of ecology and evolution. Read paper

Old males win sex battle
A study in Current Biology shows that old roosters continue to dominate the sexual pecking order even after their fertility has drastically declined. Read paper | Press release

Songs diverge through sensory drive in Amazonian birds
A paper in Evolution demonstrates that variation in the sound transmission properties of different microhabitats drives evolutionary divergence in the songs in Amazonian birds. Read paper | Front cover

Female antbirds have fine-tuned perception
A study in Proceedings of the Royal Society shows experimentally that co-existence of species with convergent mating signals can be accommodated by fine-tuned perception in females. Read paper

Reproductive success of male great tits is set from birth
A paper in Current Biology explores the effect of rearing environment on subsequent life histories and fitness in a sample of >5000 great tits studied over 45 years. Read paper | Planet Earth

Understanding the evolution of sexual traits
A paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution discusses how fluctuating selection and phenotypic plasticity influence the evolution of sexual traits. Read paper | Front cover Hypocnemis antbirds

Rival bird species evolve to sing same tune
A study of Amazonian birds, published in Evolution, shows that interspecific competition may cause convergence in territorial songs. Read paper | Press release | Science | BBC | Science Daily | ESA

Sexual conflict and cooperation over mating
A study in American Naturalist develops theory to explain sexual conflict and cooperation over mating decisions when males stimulate female fecundity, a phylogenetically widespread condition. Read paper

Cooperatively breeding animals

Kin discrimination and cooperation
A meta-analysis of cooperatively breeding birds and mammals reveals that kin discrimination provides helpers with a route to indirect fitness when relatedness within groups is too variable to favour indiscriminate cooperation. Read paper

Evolution of sex-chromosons
A review published in Trends in Genetics discusses recent advances in our understanding of the factors underpinning sex-chromosome evolution.Read paper

Ancient nests
A study of gyr falcons published in Ibis demonstrates that some traditional nest sites in Greenland have been occupied for over 2000 years. Read paper | BBC

gyr falcons at the nest

Speed counts with attractive females
Research published in Proceedings B demonstrates that male fowl allocate larger ejaculates (with higher sperm velocity) when they mate with attractive females. Read paper | Press release | Discovery

Clock gene variation correlates with timing of reproduction
Research on blue tits led by Miriam Liedvogel and published in Molecular Ecology, shows that in females, but not in males, Clock gene variation correlates with seasonal timing of reproduction. Read paper | Front cover

Sex rivals fuel 'chemical warfare' in flies
Stu Wigby showed that male fruit flies use seminal peptides to compete against rival males. Read more in Current Biology | Press release | Telegraph

male Hypocnemis peruviana

Rainforest duets are a ‘battle of the sexes’
In their study of duetting in Peruviana warbling antbirds, Joe Tobias and Nat Seddon demonstrated that female birds faced with competition from an unpaired female rival 'jam' the songs of their own mates, who then respond by singing more complex songs to avoid interference. The findings provide the first evidence that signal jamming is used within long-term partnerships. Read more in Current Biology | Press Release | National Geographic | Washington Post | New York Times | Sunday Telegraph

Large-scale senescence effects in a wild bird population
Sandra Bouwhuis, Ben Sheldon and collaborators performed analyses of age-specific reproduction in Wytham great tits to unravel its underlying mechanisms. The analyses revealed that poor-quality females die young, but that females living beyond 2 years of age suffer from reduced offspring production. This means that reproductive senescence affects as many as 20% of the females breeding each year, and therefore is much more common than previously expected in wild populations. Read more in Read more in Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Natural and sexual selection are positively correlated in antbirds
Joe Tobias and Nat Seddon conducted a comparative analysis in antbirds and showed a positive relationship between naturally selected and sexually selected traits. Read more in Journal of Evolutionary Biology | See front cover

Calcium effects on life-history traits in a wild population of the great tit
Teddy Wilkin and collaborators recently published the first evidence to suggest that the reproduction of woodland passerines may limited by calcium availability at several spatial scales. In long-term data they found that calcium availability predicted several great tit life-history stages, but that the spatial scale underpinning these relationships varied throughout the breeding season. Of particular interest is the suggestion that females may be travelling inter-territorially to obtain calcium during egg formation. Read more in Oecologia

Snow Skink

Climate effects on offspring sex ratio in a viviparous lizard
Tobias Uller and collaborators reported in the Journal of Animal Ecology that climate effects on sex determination in a Tasmanian lizard (the Snow Skink, right) generate variation in offspring sex ratios among years. Warmer years led to female-biased sex ratios whereas cooler years resulted in more males. Such fluctuations in cohort sex ratios may have important consequences for population dynamics, in particular as both the mean and variance in temperature is on the rise. Read more in Journal of Animal Ecology

Avian haematozoan parasites and their associations with mosquitoes
Farah Ishtiaq, Ben Sheldon plus collaborators published a study in Molecular Ecology that compares cytochrome b lineages of avian haematozoan parasites detected in Zosterops (avian hosts) and that isolated from mosquito species (invertebrate hosts) sampled across southwest Pacific Islands. The study highlights the possibility of new transmission pathway for haemoproteus parasites and extensive invertebrate host shifts in an insular mosquito-parasite system. Read more in Molecular Ecology

Male fowl allocate more sperm to genetically compatible hens
A study lead by researchers at the EGI and recently published in Proceedings of the Royal Society, has shown that male red junglefowl are as likely to mate with genetically compatible as with genetically incompatible hens, but allocate more sperm to genetically compatible hens whenever they are exposed to single hens in successive trials. These results indicate that, like females, males too may be able to bias paternity based on the genetic compatibility of a partner. Read more in Proceedings.

Plasticity in sexual phenotypes
Charlie Cornwallis and Tim Birkhead publish findings in Evolution that reveal males dynamically invest in behavioural, morphological and physiological sexual traits according to the intensity of pre- and post-copulatory sexual selection they face. Read more in Evolution.

Debate on the latitudinal diversity gradient
Joe Tobias and Nat Seddon contributed to a debate published in Science on the role of speciation rates in shaping the latitudinal diversity gradient. Read more in Science.

Black guillemot

Leave home to avoid inbreeding
A special issue of Proceedings B focusing on evolutionary dynamics in wild populations included a paper by Marta Szulkin and Ben Sheldon. An analysis of dispersal in Wytham great tit revealed that birds breeding with a related partner dispersed shorter distances from their natal site than birds breeding with an unrelated mate. This further translated into increased likelihood of inbreeding for birds that dispersed short distances. Inbreeding can have severe fitness consequences, and this study provides rare empirical evidence that dispersal is a key means of avoiding inbreeding. Read more in Proc. R. Soc. B.

Why not to have sex with your parents...
Marta Szulkin and others from the EGI recently published a comprehensive analysis of the fitness consequences of inbreeding in the great tit. They found that close inbreeding, such as that between siblings or between parents and offspring, while rare (only c. 1% of matings) has very severe consequences, and that these consequences mount up the further downstream one measures the cost. Read more in J. Evol. Biol.

Sexually antagonistic genetic variation for fitness in red deer
Ben Sheldon and colleagues from Edinburgh, Cambridge and Imperial published a paper in Nature on 28 June 2007 demonstrating sexually antagonistic genetic variation in red deer on Rum, off the Scottish coast. Listen to Loeske Kruuk talking about the paper on Nature's podcast | Read more in Nature

Evolutionary consequences of sperm ageing
Becky Dean, Mike Bonsall and Tom Pizzari published a perspective in Science.
Read more in Science | Read more in the press

Debate on sexual selection
Tom Pizzari and Ben Sheldon contributed to a recent debate on sexual selection in Science.
Read more in Science | Read more in The Scientist

Fake sex
In a paper published in Current Biology, Hanne Løvlie, Charlie Cornwallis and Tom Pizzari recently demonstrated that male fowl may inhibit the sexual promiscuity of a female simply by mounting her, providing an evolutionary explanation for why males often mount a female that they previously inseminated without delivering additional semen.
Read more in New Scientist | Read more in The Guardian

Inbreeding avoidance
In a study published by The Royal Society in 2004, Tom Pizzari, Hanne Løvlie and Charlie Cornwallis provided experimental evidence that male and female fowl may make conflicting decisions over inbreeding. This conflict may lead males to invest in inbreeding while female may be able to select against the sperm of male relatives after insemination.
Read more in Science | Read more in Le Science (Italia)