DPhil. Student

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Brecht Verhelst

Brecht Verhelst

Details

Name: Brecht Verhelst
Position: DPhil. Student
Email: brecht_verhelst@zoo.ox.ac.uk

Autobiography

My study trajectory has been somewhat unusual. While studying Slavic Languages and Literatures I decided to pick up my old interest in nature and to subscribe additionally to Biology. In 2009 I graduated from Ghent University (Belgium) with a Bsc in Biology and an Msc in Slavic Languages. During these studies I was very active in the Nature Research group of the Youth Association for Nature and Environment, a Flemish NGO that brings together young people with an interest in nature. In 2008 I started the Batumi Raptor Count, an international project for the study and conservation of what turned out to be the most important bottleneck for autumn raptor migration in the West Palearctic (www.batumiraptorcount.org). Currently I am reading for a DPhil at the EGI under the supervision of Prof. Ben Sheldon.

Research Activities

With my DPhil I hope to contribute some new insights to our understanding of the immensely complex question of dispersal. Using data from large-scale PIT-tagging of Great and Blue Tits, I will try to identify the social drivers that (1) induce an individual to leave its natal area and (2) facilitate or inhibit its settlement into a novel environment. The combination of a social network approach with a spatial analysis of individual movements may shed new light on some long-standing issues in the study of dispersal, such as kin competition, inbreeding avoidance and condition-dependent dispersal.

Selected Recent Papers

Watch this space!