Conservation Biology

Like most field biologists, I am greatly concerned about the state of global biodiversity in the 21st century. My focus has been on conservation in the Central Andes, especially the Lake Titicaca region. This often neglected region is a continental centre for endemism, but has threats ranging from overfishing and pollution to climate change. I use a combination of methodologies in my research, including using stable isotope analysis to study the effect of invasive species on food webs in Lake Titicaca, species distribution models to assess changes species ranges of poorly studied endemics, integrating paleoecological data into models of how species will respond to climate change, satellite data to study change in wetland extent, and interviews with local people to address human-wildlife conflict. I have a particular interest in the conservation of high altitude ecosystems. 

Ethnobiology

Ethnobiology is the study of how humans and their natural environment interact with each other and influence each other. My interest in ethnobiology is an outgrowth of my work on conservation biology, as I came to realise that no effective conservation programme could exist without understanding the social-ecological context of the biodiversity I was seeking to preserve. I am interested in ethnobiology of the Central Andes specifically, and more broadly I am interested in integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge with conservation efforts in Latin America. I am also interested in how Traditional Ecological Changes in response to economic and environmental perturbations, and the knock-on effects of changing Traditional Ecological Knowledge on people and ecosystems. Most of my ethnobiological work has been done with Aymara speakers of the Lake Titicaca. 

Animal Behaviour

I am originally an ethologist, with my first forays into research being focused on the evolution of same-sex sexual behaviour in North American field crickets. I have continued to study animal behaviour in the wild, focusing on the behaviour of the Titicaca Grebe, including its mate choice, parental care, nest building behaviour, and social behaviour amongst these birds. I am also interested in behavioural responses to changing environments, whether that be changing foraging patterns in response to invasive species, or changing migratory and nesting patterns in response to changing climates. 

Macroecology and Evolutionary Biology

What drives interspecific variation in behaviour and in responses to changing environments is an abiding interest of mine. I have extended my work on Same-Sex Sexual Behaviour in crickets to studying this same behaviour in birds, and looking at whether interspecific variation in it can have an adaptive explanation. This interested in the evolution of Same-Sex Sexual Behaviour has extended to interest in the evolution of other seemingly non-adaptive sexual behaviours, such as female-on-male mounting and masturbation. I have also done work on the effect of altitude on sexually selected traits, such as sexual dichromatism and sexual size dimorphism. I am interested in further integrating paleontological and historical data on species traits and ranges into macroecological work. 

Natural History 

The basis of all biology is natural history - non-hypothesis driven observation of nature. Unfortunately, this mode of investigation has fallen out of fashion with many funders and publishers in the last several decades. Much of my work in the Central Andes has been cataloguing the distribution and behaviours of poorly studied species, often with nothing more complicated than a pair of binoculars and a notebook. I am involved in building up the natural history collections of the Universidad Nacional del Altiplano in Puno, where I have had the privilege of being the first person to build up its bird collections.