DPhil. Student

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Ben Daly

Ben Daly

Details

Name: Ben Daly
Position: DPhil. Student
Email: benjamin.daly@zoo.ox.ac.uk

Autobiography

I studied a B.Sc. (Hons) at the University of Sydney (2006). My honours research focused on the ecology of co-occurring Ctenophorus lizards in the Simpson Desert of south-western Queensland. Specifically, I investigated patterns of habitat use in relation to thermal, dietary and competition-based hypotheses. After this I worked in both public and private business for a period then went on to study a M.Sc. in Biology (Integrative Bioscience) at the University of Oxford (2008). Here I completed separate behavioural and ecological field projects on great tits, Parus major and introduced wall Lizards, Podarcis muralis, respectively. I am now continuing my D.Phil. research at Oxford as a Sir Richard Southward Graduate Scholar at Jesus College, under the supervision of Drs. Joe Tobias and Nat Seddon.

Research Activities

My DPhil project aims to investigate patterns of diversity in birds and butterflies in relation to ecological factors in the Kosnipata Valley, SE Peru. Here, the gradient from Amazon lowlands to Andean peaks lies in one of the most biologically diverse regions on Earth, encompassing an elevational span of 400-4000m, and a horizontal distance of only 20 km. The transect passes through unbroken forest, where datasets on climate, productivity and habitat heterogeneity have been compiled by the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. Birds and butterflies will be surveyed at permanent study plots along this transect, to evaluate the extent to which key ecological hypotheses account for patterns in diversity. I will deal with diversity at three levels: the number of species ("species richness"), the number of individuals ("species diversity"), and community structure (broken down into guilds).

Selected Recent Papers

Daly, B. G., Dickman, C. R. & Crowther, M. 2007. Selection of habitat components by two species of agamid lizards in sandridge desert, central Australia. Austral Ecology 32: 825-833.

Daly, B. G., Dickman, C. R. & Crowther, M. 2008. Causes of habitat divergence in two species of agamid lizards in arid central Australia. Ecology 89: 65-76.