Research

I am a behavioural ecologist, specialising in bioacoustics. My research addresses novel and pressing topics in our understanding of animal communication as well as the development of novel methodologies to comprehensively and robustly explore this. I study how social associations and the use of different modalities influence communication (with a special focus on acoustic communication) between individuals and how this consequently affects behaviour. Furthermore, my research investigates the structure of sensory cues and the variation in cue production and perception: which parts of a cue encode specific information, the consistency and origin of this template, and its variation, flexibility and consistency across individuals, groups, populations, and species. I approach animal communication as a multi-level phenomenon and integrate various types of information to provide fundamental knowledge about the mechanisms underlying communication, establishing a basis for deriving general rules by which information transfer is governed. This holistic approach necessitates the development and application of innovative technological solutions and advanced analytical methods, which I embed in my projects.

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