In 2004 I was elected as the inaugural holder of the Luc Hoffmann Chair in Field Ornithology and appointed Director of the Edward Grey Institute, a research institute based within the Department of Zoology.
I have been Head of Department since October 2016. I am also the Senior User Representative for Life and Mind Building.
I have broad interests in evolution, ecology and behaviour, with a particular focus on understanding the causes and consequences of individual-level variation. My empirical work often uses wild bird populations as a model, particularly exploiting insights drawn from long-term population studies such as that of the great tit in Wytham Woods. My research group typically consists of several postdocs and associated fellows, and 5-6 graduate students. Current research themes include: (1) Social ecology of wild bird populations; (2) Adaptation and constraint in phenotypic plasticity; (3) Ecology and epidemiology of avian malaria; (4) Ecological genetics of life-history characters. We use a combination of field observations and experiments, quantitative and molecular genetic analysis, to understand these problems.
In the last decade our work has been funded by major grants from BBSRC, NERC and the ERC; the latter project ("Evolutionary Social Ecology") developed a new system for collecting very large-scale data on movements and association rates for thousands of individually-marked birds using a grid of automated detectors, and for understanding the determinants and effects of social structure in populations. My most recent NERC grants address (i) the effect of spatial, temporal and developmental constraints on adaptive plasticity, using phenological matching in the tri-trophic oak-winter moth-great tit system, and (ii) testing ecological effects on the diffusion of information in natural populations., while my most recent BBSRC grant tested mechanisms of social learning in wild birds.
Publications
Fluctuating optimum and temporally variable selection on breeding date in birds and mammals
December 2020
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Journal article
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA
Strengthening the evidence base for temperature-mediated phenological asynchrony and its impacts
December 2020
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Journal article
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Nature Ecology and Evolution
Phenological asynchrony: a ticking time-bomb for seemingly stable populations?
December 2020
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Journal article
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Ecology letters
Climate change has been shown to induce shifts in the timing of life-history events. As a result, interactions between species can become disrupted, with potentially detrimental effects. Predicting these consequences has proven challenging. We apply structured population models to a well-characterised great tit-caterpillar model system and identify thresholds of temporal asynchrony, beyond which the predator population will rapidly go extinct. Our model suggests that phenotypic plasticity in predator breeding timing initially maintains temporal synchrony in the face of environmental change. However, under projections of climate change, predator plasticity was insufficient to keep pace with prey phenology. Directional evolution then accelerated, but could not prevent mismatch. Once predator phenology lagged behind prey by more than 24 days, rapid extinction was inevitable, despite previously stable population dynamics. Our projections suggest that current population stability could be masking a route to population collapse, if high greenhouse gas emissions continue.
Animals, Food Chain, Seasons, Population Dynamics, Bombs, Climate Change
Individual variability and versatility in an eco-evolutionary model of avian migration.
November 2020
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Journal article
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Proceedings. Biological sciences
Seasonal migration is a complex and variable behaviour with the potential to promote reproductive isolation. In Eurasian blackcaps (<i>Sylvia atricapilla</i>), a migratory divide in central Europe separating populations with southwest (SW) and southeast (SE) autumn routes may facilitate isolation, and individuals using new wintering areas in Britain show divergence from Mediterranean winterers. We tracked 100 blackcaps in the wild to characterize these strategies. Blackcaps to the west and east of the divide used predominantly SW and SE directions, respectively, but close to the contact zone many individuals took intermediate (S) routes. At 14.0° E, we documented a sharp transition from SW to SE migratory directions across only 27 (10-86) km, implying a strong selection gradient across the divide. Blackcaps wintering in Britain took northwesterly migration routes from continental European breeding grounds. They originated from a surprisingly extensive area, spanning 2000 km of the breeding range. British winterers bred in sympatry with SW-bound migrants but arrived 9.8 days earlier on the breeding grounds, suggesting some potential for assortative mating by timing. Overall, our data reveal complex variation in songbird migration and suggest that selection can maintain variation in migration direction across short distances while enabling the spread of a novel strategy across a wide range.
