David WheatcroftAssociate Professor

About me

I am broadly interested in avian communication from acoustic, behavioral, comparative, and neurogenomic perspectives. Most of our current research aims to understand the interactions between experience-dependent and -independent factors that determine song learning in birds.

Juvenile songbirds must learn the (variable) songs of their own species, but are exposed to the songs from a wide variety of other species throughout their life. How do they focus learning onto appropriate songs?

Our work integrates behavioural experiments with neurogenomic assays to address this question using the pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca, as our model system.

Research projects

Ongoing

Completed

Long-term change in Swedish bird populations, with special focus on climate and habitat changes

Global warming is affecting the annual cycle of birds with consequences on population trends. Still, there is a need to understand the large variability within and between species, and the mechanisms underlying current changes to foresee future effects on biodiversity of avian species and their ecosystem services.