RESEARCH

Natural History | Trait Evolution | Behavioral Ecology

Evolutionary Ecology of Nests

I'm interested in the innovations in nest design as a potential factor in the evolutionary success of some clades when they colonized new ecological niches as they diversified. I approach this question by estimating ancestral states and quantified macroevolutionary transition rates between nest types. I also examine the potential coevolutionary relationship between nest type and habitat and use phylogenetic mixed models to determine possible ecological and environmental correlates of nest design.

This chapter was published as a part of the theme issue ‘The evolutionary ecology of nests: a cross-taxon approach’ by the Royal Society.

Ocampo D, De Silva TN, Sheard C, Stoddard MC. 2023 Evolution of nest architecture in tyrant flycatchers and allies. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 378: 20220148.

Colour and Structure of the birds' eggshells

I'm interested in the trade-off between the structural, physiological, and signaling functions shaping the eggs' diversity in Tinamous and other birds.

How nesting locations may drive the evolution of the eggshell nanostructures?

What forces drive the evolution of the intriguing eggshell colors and structures?

To approach these questions, I perform extensive fieldwork in the tropics and use specimens in Museum Collections. I employ spectrophotometry and visual modeling, as well as various Microscopic tools (e.g. SEM, Confocal, AFM, 3D X-Ray, Gelsight), to describe macroevolutionary patterns and how they relate to species intra and inter-specific interactions across environmental gradients.

Bird gut Microbiome

The gut microbial community and its diversity are affected by many intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Some studies have shown that avian microbiomes exhibit significant taxonomic diversity, both among individual hosts and across different host species. Interestingly, these variations are primarily driven by factors such as flight-adapted gut modifications, environmental conditions, and the dietary choices of the host, rather than being strongly associated with host phylogeny.

To test this hypothesis, I'm studying nesting colonies of three Weaver birds at Mpala Research Centre (Kenya) using metagenomic approaches to understand the ecological and environmental factors influencing the composition and variation of bird gut microbiomes.