Cockburn Group - Evolutionary ecology
Cooperative breeding occurs where more than two individuals combine to rear a single brood of young. It is extraordinarily prevalent in the Australian avifauna, for both phylogenetic and ecological reasons, and we are conducting a number of studies to understand this prevalence. Current work focuses on superb fairy-wrens and woodswallows, though we have worked with kookaburras, bee-eaters, kingfishers, thornbills, choughs and parrots.
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Under her wing: thirty years observing the secret lives of superb fairy wrens
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Fuzzy ducklings alert! But watch out for the parents
![Fairy wren](https://biology.anu.edu.au/files/styles/anu_narrow_200_100/public/fairywren_0.jpg?itok=IviPxt4E)
Fairy-wrens change breeding habits to cope with climate change
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Shy male tits stick together, take more risks
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E&E Special Seminar: The structure of phenotypic variation: questions arising from analysis of repeatedly-expressed traits
Biological variation is organized hierarchically; it exists among taxa, among populations, among genotypes or individuals, and within genotypes or
![](https://biology.anu.edu.au/files/styles/anu_narrow_200_100/public/CockburnPic.jpg?itok=xRO87vfu)
Can’t see the ‘hood for the trees: the comparative method and phylogenetic and ecological variation in cooperative breeding in birds
In recent years a number of high profile publications have used phylogenetically explicit comparative methods to attempt to explain the distributio