Royal Society University Research Fellow
Tutorial Fellow in Biology and Human Sciences, Wadham College

Email: nathalie.seddon@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Address: Department of Zoology, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS
Phone: 01865 271202
Alternative website: http://www.neomorphus.com

Autobiography
After graduating in Zoology from Cambridge (1996), I completed a PhD on the ecology, communication and conservation of the subdesert mesite in Madagascar (Cambridge, 1997-2001). I then held a Gibbs Travelling Research Fellowship to study vocal communication in the pale-winged trumpeter in Peru (Newnham College, Cambridge, 2001-2002), before beginning my studies of speciation in Amazonian birds as a Junior Research Fellow (Newnham College, Cambridge, 2002-2005). I am continuing these studies as a Royal Society University Research Fellow based at the Edward Grey Institute in the Department of Zoology.

Research Interests
I have broad interests in the evolutionary ecology, diversification and conservation of tropical birds. With two diverse assemblages of suboscine passerines, the antbirds and the ovenbirds as the main study systems, my group (http://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/egi/research/tropecol.htm) explores the processes underlying avian diversity and biogeography in South America, focusing on the roles of ecology and sexual selection in driving speciation and facilitating species co-existence. I also have strong, on-going interests in the evolution of cooperative behaviour, the role of vocalizations in mediating cooperation and conflict in social groups, and the conservation of tropical ecosystems.

Other Details
I am an Associate Editor for Journal of Animal Ecology, and a member of the American Society for Naturalists, the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation and the Conservation Biology Society. Along with my research and tutorial work at Wadham, I give undergraduate lectures in Avian Ecology, and help coordinate two M. Sc. Modules: Ornithology and Statistics for Biologists.

Selected Publications

• Tobias, J.A. &: Seddon, N. 2009. Signal jamming mediates sexual conflict in a duetting bird Current Biology. 19: 1-6.
• Tobias, J.A. &: Seddon, N. 2009. Sexual selection and ecological generalism are correlated in antbirds. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 22: 623-636.
• Seddon, N., Merrill, R. M. & Tobias, J.A. 2008. Sexually selected traits predict patterns of species richness in a diverse clade of suboscine birds. American Naturalist 171: 620-631.
• Seddon, N. & Tobias, J.A. 2007. Song divergence at the edge of Amazonia: an empirical test of the peripatric speciation model. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 90: 173-188.
• Seddon, N. 2005. Ecological adaptation and species recognition drives vocal evolution in Neotropical suboscine birds. Evolution 59: 200-215
• Seddon, N., Amos, W., Mulder, R. & Tobias, J. A. 2004. Male heterozygosity predicts territory size, song structure and reproductive success in a cooperatively breeding bird. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B 271: 1823-1829.