University of New South Wales - BEES Home

| Teaching | Research |

My work focuses on a number of bird and mammal species (including humans) to address questions about the evolution of cooperative breeding and animal societies, using different approaches from the use of long-term datasets to experimental field work. Currently my main project focuses on a population of the chestnut-crowned babbler at the UNSW Arid Zone Research Station at Fowlers Gap.

Maternal allocation and differential allocation in cooperative birds and mammals.

My main research is aimed at (1) investigating how helper number and predictability influence maternal allocation of resources in the eggs of cooperatively breeding birds and the young offspring of cooperatively breeding mammals; and (2) examining the fitness consequences of such differential allocation.

Evolution of cooperative breeding in birds and mammals, including humans.

I continue to have a strong interest in the role of ecology, life-history and phylogeny in the evolution of cooperative breeding in both birds and mammals. I currently have a joint PhD student (with Virpi Lummaa) working on the fitness benefits of family-living and grandmothering in pre-industrial humans, and a joint PhD student with Ben Hatchwell on the evolution of cooperative breeding in long-tailed tits.

Individual contributions to cooperation in vertebrates.

I also have a strong interest in accounting for the extreme variation often observed in individual contributions to cooperation within groups of the same species of cooperative vertebrates. In particular I am interested in the relative roles of relatedness, age, sex, condition and hormones in explaining this variation, and why aggressive interactions between individuals are surprisingly rare.