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Dr Naomi Langmore

Senior Research Fellow

School of Biology

Contact details

Botany and Zoology

School of Biology

Australian National University

Canberra ACT 0200

Ph. +61 2 61258436

Fax. +61 2 61255573

Email. naomi.langmoreATanu.edu.au

© Julian Robinson

Background

1991-1994 PhD: Song and the variable mating systems of dunnocks and alpine accentors. University of Cambridge
1995 Research Assistant to Prof. Nick Davies, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge
1995-1999 Junior Research Fellow, Peterhouse, Cambridge
1999-2002 ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship, School of Botany and Zoology, ANU
2003-2004 Time off to work on my own reproductive success...
2004-present ARC Australian Research Fellowship, School of Botany and Zoology, ANU

Current Research Projects

Coevolution between Australian cuckoos and their hosts
Cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other species, and thereafter abandon their young entirely to the hosts care. The costs of parasitism to the host are high, provoking an evolutionary arms race in which hosts evolve defences against parasitism and cuckoos evolve ever more cunning tricks to gain reproductive success. My research, in collaboration with Becky Kilner (University of Cambridge) includes an investigation of the cognitive processes and evolutionary consequences of discrimination of Horsfield’s bronze-cuckoo chicks by superb fairy-wrens, a broad-scale study of coevolutionary interactions between Australian bronze-cuckoos and their hosts, and experimental tests of the processes leading to egg mimicry by pallid cuckoos and egg discrimination by their hosts.

The evolution of song in female birds
A historic bias towards behavioural studies in the temperate northern hemisphere has led to the perception that song in female birds is rare and anomalous behaviour. However, recent studies have revealed that female song and duetting are widespread in the tropics and the southern hemisphere. Our research aims to explain this latitudinal divide by exploring the social and ecological conditions associated with female song.

The influence of breeding synchrony on avian reproductive strategies
The discovery that birds commonly mate with individuals other than their own social partner, resulting in extra-pair paternity, is arguably the most important advance in the field of avian mating systems in the last thirty years. However, we still have little understanding of why rates of extra-pair paternity vary so dramatically both between and within different species. One of the leading factors proposed to explain this variation is the extent to which pairs synchronise their breeding activities. I am working with Simon Griffith (Macquarie University) and Michael Magrath (ANU) to investigate the importance of this factor in an experimental study of fairy martins.

Christina Zdenek

Individual identification by voice in palm cockatoos

Collaborators
Greg Adcock (Australian National University)
Simon Griffith (Macquarie University)
Michelle Hall (Max Planck Institute for Ornithology)
Rob Heinsohn (Australian National University)
Leo Joseph (ANWC, CSIRO)
Becky Kilner (University of Cambridge)
Golo Maurer (Australian National University)
Anne Peters (Max Planck Institute for Ornithology)
Katharina Riebel (University of Leiden)
Andrew Russell (University of Sheffield)
Wei Liang (Hainan Normal University)

Former students
Michelle Landstrom - Coevolution between pallid cuckoos and their hosts Amy Rogers - Ecology and song of the eastern whipbird
Melissa Starling - Interspecific interactions in willie wagtails
Tanya Zeriga - The controversial taxonomy of the little bronze-cuckoo and Gould’s bronze-cuckoo

PhD Opportunities
If you are interested in applying for a PhD in our group, please contact me by email and check out our website about graduate research in Ecology, Evolution and Systematics at ANU.