Current Member - Dr. Sandra Bouwhuis
Research Fellow
Dr. Sandra Bouwhuis
Details
Name: Dr. Sandra Bouwhuis
Position: Research Fellow
Email: sandra.bouwhuis@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Autobiography
Following a bachelor and topmaster ‘Evolutionary Biology’ at the University of Groningen, I enrolled in a PhD project entitled ‘Great tits growing old: patterns and processes of ageing in a wild bird population’ in 2005. Within the context of my PhD project, and together with Anne Charmantier, Ben Sheldon and Simon Verhulst, I have separated between- and within-individual processes underlying age-specific reproduction in the Wytham great tits, using the EGIs long-term dataset. Our analyses have shown that poor-quality breeders are more likely to disappear from the population, causing cross-sectional analyses of age-specific reproduction to underestimate the extent to which individuals suffer from the within-individual process of reproductive senescence. We have also shown within-individual patterns of age-specific reproduction to vary between individuals in relation to (i) the age of their mothers when they were born, (ii) their immigrant status, and (iii) their reproductive performance early in life. Together with Rémi Choquet, we have extended our analyses of age-specific reproduction to analyses of age-specificity of survival and reproductive value, also assessing the total fitness cost of senescence. These analyses have revealed two more aspects of senescence: an increase in skipped or failed breeding with age, and a decline in local survival probability. All aspects of senescence combined, reproductive value of Wytham great tits declines by 87% between the ages 1 and 9, although the expected cost of this decline at the onset of reproductive life at age 1 is only 4%.
Research Activities
After successfully defending my thesis, I took up a postdoc at the EGI in 2010, in which I extended my view of great tits beyond their breeding seasons, using automated tag data collected throughout the autumn and winter to study temporal variation in survival. At present, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sheffield, working on the evolution of lifespan in humans with Virpi Lummaa, but in May 2012 I will return to the EGI on a Dutch Rubicon grant to further study the genetic, ecological and behavioural determinants of individual variation in mortality in the Wytham great tits.
Selected Papers
Bouwhuis, S., Choquet, R., Sheldon, B.C. & Verhulst, S. (2012) The forms and fitness cost of senescence: age-specific recapture, survival, reproduction and reproductive value in a wild bird populationThe American Naturalist 179, E15-E27. | Read abstract/paper online
Bouwhuis, S., Sheldon, B.C. & Verhulst, S. (2011) Basal metabolic rate and the rate of senescence in the great titFunctional Ecology 24: 829-838. | Read abstract/paper online
Bouwhuis, S., van Noordwijk, A.J., Sheldon, B.C., Verhulst, S. & Visser, M.E. (2010) Similar patterns of age-specific reproduction in an island and mainland population of great tits, Parus major Journal of Avian Biology 41: 615-620. | Read abstract/paper online
Bouwhuis, S., Charmantier, A., Verhulst, S. & Sheldon, B.C. (2010) Individual variation in rates of senescence: natal origin effects and disposable soma in a wild bird population Journal of Animal Ecology 79: 1251-1261. | Read abstract/paper online
Bouwhuis, S., Charmantier, A., Verhulst, S. & Sheldon, B.C. (2010) Trans-generational effects on ageing in a wild bird populationJournal of Evolutionary Biology 23: 636-642. | Read abstract/paper online
Bouwhuis, S., Sheldon, B.C., Verhulst, S. & Charmantier, A. (2009) Great tits growing old: selective disappearance and the partitioning of senescence to stages within the breeding cycleProceedings of the Royal Society B 276: 2769-2777. | Read abstract/paper online
Download complete list of publications in PDF format
