Ornithology

Former Department of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics (renamed in July 2023)

The Department of Ornithology conducts research in behavioural ecology of birds.

We ask how sexual selection acts as a driver of biodiversity. We study the processes that underlie sexual selection and their consequences for the evolution of behavioural and life-history traits. Our work is characterized by technology-assisted behavioural observations on large numbers of individuals in free-living populations, complemented by observations on captive individuals, and a quantitative approach using state-of-the-art statistical methods. We also conduct comparative analyses to test hypotheses about the evolution of key phenotypic traits. To this end, we maintain and develop a database that links life-history traits of the world's 10,000 bird species with environmental and ecological data.

For more information see here