Research

My research sits at the intersection of behavioural ecology, evolutionary ecology, and evidence synthesis. I am broadly interested in how organisms respond to environmental variation, how life-history trade-offs and plasticity shape those responses, and how quantitative and synthesis-based approaches can help us study them more rigorously.

Across these areas, a common thread in my work is understanding biological responses to changing environments while building research that is transparent, reproducible, and collaborative.

Environmental change, behaviour, and fitness

A major theme in my research is how environmental conditions shape biological timing, reproductive decisions, and fitness-related outcomes. I am especially interested in seasonal and environmental variation, including cases where the challenge is not only a shift in average conditions, but a loss of predictability through time.

This perspective has been shaped strongly by long-term ecological research and by my collaboration with Hugh Drummond and the Drummond lab at UNAM, whose work on Blue-footed Boobies and Isla Isabel has provided an unusually rich setting for asking life-history and behavioural questions over extended timescales. You can read a broader account of that long-running research context here.

Life-history evolution and individual plasticity

I am also interested in how individuals vary in reproductive strategies across age, experience, and environmental conditions. These questions are central to behavioural ecology because they connect individual decisions with broader ecological and evolutionary patterns.

My work asks how organisms allocate reproductive effort, how consistent those strategies are across contexts, and how plasticity can help explain variation in performance and fitness. This interest in individual differences has also shaped the kinds of quantitative tools I use, especially when variation itself is biologically meaningful rather than just statistical noise.

Evidence synthesis and quantitative ecology

Alongside empirical ecology, I work on evidence synthesis, including systematic reviews, systematic maps, and meta-analysis. This allows me to address broader questions that extend beyond any one study system, while also contributing to methodological discussions about rigor, transparency, and reproducibility in research synthesis.

I am particularly drawn to synthesis work that connects ecological and evolutionary questions with careful methodology, because it helps bridge substantive biological questions with better scientific practice.

Quantitative approaches

Much of my research relies on Bayesian hierarchical modelling and related methods that allow us to study heterogeneity, predictability, and individual differences directly. I am especially interested in approaches that move beyond average responses and treat variation as part of the biological question.

This interest has also been shaped by collaborative and training experiences. During a short research internship with the Loeske Kruuk group at the University of Edinburgh, I worked on questions related to individual plastic responses to local climate change using random regression approaches. More on that group here. I also completed a research internship at the Centre d’Estudis Avançats de Blanes, where I trained in demographic and multi-state approaches in the group of Daniel Oro. More on his work here.

Current projects

Environmental predictability and reproductive success

Current work examining how changes in environmental predictability can shape biological timing and reproductive outcomes, with a focus on linking ecological variability to demographic consequences.

Evidence synthesis on behaviour, ecology, and global change

Projects using systematic reviews, systematic maps, and meta-analysis to synthesize ecological and behavioural evidence across broad literatures, while also improving transparency and rigor in review practice.

Quantitative methods for ecology and evolution

Collaborative methodological work on statistical approaches for studying variation, heterogeneity, and effect sizes in ecology and evolution.

Open science and collaboration

Open science is an important part of how I approach research. I aim to build projects that are easier to understand, evaluate, and extend through reproducible workflows, clear documentation, and collaborative development.

I am especially interested in collaborations that connect behavioural ecology, evolutionary ecology, quantitative methods, and evidence synthesis, and in contributing to research environments where ideas, code, and workflows are shared constructively.