DPhil. Student

Current Members | Former Members | Photos


Chris Cooney

Chris Cooney

Details

Name: Chris Cooney
Position: DPhil. Student
Email: chris.cooney@zoo.ox.ac.uk

Autobiography

In 2010 I completed a B.Sc. Hons degree in Biology at the University of York, during which I developed a strong interest in the broad areas of behavioural ecology, sexual selection and the generation of biodiversity. Much of the research I carried out in my later years at York was focused within these areas, and in 2009 I was afforded the opportunity to spend a summer investigating the influence of bilateral symmetry on mate choice and female allocation in Drosophila melanogaster as part of a Wellcome Trust Biomedical Vacation Scholarship. For my final year research project I made the switch from lab bench to computer keyboard to employ statistical modelling and phylogenetic techniques to investigate the macroevolutionary processes underlying the variation in species richness between the mammalian families. With my D.Phil project I will now make the transition from speciation research in mammals, to research using the avian system.

Research Activities

Our understanding of the processes by which new species arise has progressed much since Charles Darwin published his masterpiece over a century and a half ago. Yet, major questions still remain, such as relative contributions of ecology and sexual selection in generating diversity. Working with Nat Seddon and Joe Tobias, it is the aim of my D.Phil. project address this issue by asking whether there is always an ecological component to speciation, or can sexual selection or cultural evolution drive diversification in the absence of ecological differences. By using extensive digital birdsong archives I intend to quantify acoustic signal design and provide indices of sexual selection and cultural evolution; these may then be used to assess the importance of non-ecological forms of speciation in the generation of avian diversity. This, in conjunction with a detailed investigation of the importance of ecological drivers of diversification, will allow me to conduct a thorough study of the mechanisms underlying speciation in birds, with a view to ultimately disentangling the roles of sexual selection and ecology.

Selected Recent Papers

Watch this space