Animal Behaviour

Pricipal Investigator of Animal Behaviour

The unifying feature of my different research projects is life history strategy evolution, the way natural selection optimises the entire life of an organism. Differences between individuals and their life histories are evaluated by natural selection on the basis of fitness. Hence it is of paramount importance to measure fitness if we want to attach biological meaningfulness to animal behaviour. However, animal behaviour and life history strategies do not evolve in isolation. Individual behaviour is bound to have consequences at the population level and, conversely, populations set the stage for the evolution of life history strategies and animal behaviour. As a consequence, by studying life history strategies, my research is encompassed by a triangle of evolution, ecology and ethology. Only detailed knowledge of individual fitness allows one to decompose individual behavioural variation into components of genotypic and phenotypic quality, as well as environmental effects.

Research Interests

• Evolution of life histories in birds of prey
• Host-parasite coevolution in cuckoos
• Evolution at the large scale: modern comparative approaches

Research Interests

Postdoctoral Research Fellow collaborating with the University of California, Santa Cruz, to explore the determinants of individual foraging behavior in Galápagos, California, Southern, New Zealand, and Australian sea lions. 

PhD student in the Galapagos Sea Lion Project, investigating the development and consequences of individual foraging strategies in sea lion females and immatures, using dive computers, personality tests and behavior observations.

Research Interests

• Demography and reproductive strategy of sea lions
• Parent-offspring conflict

Publications