Ana Cristina Gomes
Collaborator
My main research interests focus on sexual and social selection, behaviour and sexual ornamentation and their evolution, and what shapes and maintains social interactions.
During my MSc, I studied the evolution of colour ornamentation in a bird family, the Estrildidae, to understand the evolution of sexual ornamentation traits and its influence in ecology and speciation.
More recently, during my PhD I studied on how phenotypes influences social structure and mate choice, using theoretical and empirical work. My PhD project was mainly a long-term study of unprecedented detail on the social structure and phenotypes of a gregarious avian species, the common waxbill, living in a large mesocosm environment. Specifically, I studied how social associations and phenotypes interact to shape social structure in gregarious animals.
Currently, I am collaborating with the BE group, on different studies and projects, regarding the common waxbills in the mesocosm.