Main Research Interest
Behavioural ecology; acoustic communication; ornithology

Background
I completed my first degree at Monash University in Melbourne, supervised by Alan Lill, where I studied the winter foraging ecology of crimson rosellas, a medium-sized parrot. I then worked on a conservation biology project on lesser floricans, a small bustard with an extravagant aerial display, found in the grasslands of western India. I returned south of the Equator to join Steve Pruett-Jones as a volunteer during his work on lekking by Lawes' parotia, a bird of paradise that lives in the mountains of Papua New Guinea. After a period of traveling in the South Pacific, I migrated north to do my PhD on hatching asynchrony in European blackbirds at the University of Cambridge, supervised by Nick Davies, and then taught in the Edward Grey Institute in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. The temptation to do field research on unstudied birds - without needing a raincoat - finally brought me to the Australian National University.

Research Interests
I have broad interests in avian breeding biology, behaviour and acoustic communication, and the work in my group falls into several overlapping themes.

a) Alarm calls and acoustic communication.
The new focus of our work is on alarm calls and acoustic communication.

Many species of birds appear to give alarm calls warning of danger, but without playback experiments it is difficult to know if these calls really do act as alarm calls, and what information they convey. Our work on alarm calls is in progress, but already we have shown that scrubwrens give aerial alarm calls to warn of flying predators, including raptors and large omnivores. Furthermore, Adam Leavesley and I showed that scrubwrens systematically modify their alarm calls according to the distance from a flying predator, and therefore the degree of danger. This is the first unambiguous demonstration of a danger encoding in a wild bird.

Nestlings of many species beg conspicuously, which is likely to make them vulnerable to eavesdropping by predators , but it is difficult to estimate the risk. Playback experiments have shown that predators are more likely to find nests from which begging calls are broadcast, but these experiments ignore the role that parents might play in reducing risk by warning young of danger. Dirk Platzen and I have shown experimentally that scrubwren parental alarm calls can silence nestlings, and that nestlings respond specifically to alarm calls given to predators on the ground rather than those given to predators in flight. This makes adaptive sense because scrubwren nests are well hidden and on the ground, and so are vulnerable to predators on the ground, not those in flight.

In addition to our work on alarm communication, Michelle Hall has studied the function of duetting Australian magpie-larks. She found that duetting was related to territoriality and not mate-guarding.   We also have work in progress on song matching and neighbour recognition in scrubwrens.

b) Breeding biology and parental behaviour .
We're interested reproductive strategies, including hatching asynchrony, the allocation of care to young, and parent-offspring communication.

In many species of birds, eggs within a clutch hatch on different days. Hatching asynchrony is puzzling because it seems maladaptive: the last to hatch often starves to death. Lack (1947) proposed that asynchrony was an adaptation to allow parents to reduce brood size if food proved scarce after hatching, but how do adults prevent later-hatched young being out-competed by older siblings even when food is plentiful? Elsie Krebs found female crimson rosellas adjust their allocation according to the overall hunger of the brood. A mother preferentially seeks out the youngest nestling when the brood is not too hungry, but switches preference to the oldest when the whole brood is hungry. Her behaviour helps explain why young typically grow well despite extreme hatching asynchrony, yet appears to facilitate selective brood reduction if food is short. In contrast to mothers, fathers appear simply to allocate food to the most demanding nestling in any one visit.

We have also tackled the enduring puzzle of brood division in birds. In some species, individual adults feed a subset of the brood after fledging, rather than each feeding all young, but the temporal stability and function of brood division is unknown. Ashley Leedman and I found that white-browed scrubwrens have long-term brood division, with sub-families being stable over periods of weeks. We found that brood division was not related to offspring sex, genetic paternity, foraging efficiency or the risk of predation, but that fledglings took an active role in maintaining brood division, apparently because bigger young sequester care from the best feeders. We also found the conflicts among siblings and adults probably have a role, and suggest that individual adults and young benefit from social specialization.

c) Cooperative breeding and mating systems.
We have had a long-term project looking at cooperative breeding and the mating system of white-browed scrubwrens. Cooperative breeders are those species in which more than a simple pair is involved in the care of young. Scrubwrens are unusual among such species because the behaviour of subordinate males is highly variable. In most species, subordinates routinely help feed the young, but in scrubwrens they often do not help despite usually being philopatric offspring. Linda Whittingham, Peter Dunn and I discovered using DNA-fingerprinting that sons compete with dominant males to copulate with the breeding female, even competing with their fathers for access to stepmothers. Sons "help" at least partly because they have sired young, or have the prospect of siring young, not solely through the indirect benefits of kinship to dominants. We have also discovered that a yearling female's reproductive success is much higher if she breeds in a group rather than in a pair, whereas older females gain no benefit from breeding in a group. I generalized this result to suggest that the benefit of cooperation is likely to be greater in poorer conditions for breeding, and find support from a comparison of species.

In addition to our long-term work on scrubwrens, Janet Gardner and Daniel Ebert have worked on cooperative breeding and the mating system of speckled warblers and yellow-rumped thornbills. Despite being in the same family as scrubwrens and having remarkably similar demography, these birds have quite different social organization. Speckled warblers form groups in which the subordinates never help care for young. This is particularly remarkable because all young disperse from their natal territory and join unrelated pairs to form groups. Together with Hanna Kokko, University of Helsinki, we developed a model of dispersal to argue that early dispersal will increase a male's change of inheriting a territory compared with the "normal" strategy of philopatry. Yellow-rumped thornbills are usually pair breeding, but occasionally philopatric males occasionally act as subordinate helpers. Both these species, in contrast to scrubwrens, have a two-tier social organization, with breeding groups coalescing in the winter.

Our work on mating systems has diversified with Golo Maurer's study of the enigmatic pheasant coucal, a non-parasitic cuckoo species that combines male parental care and reversed sexual dimorphism. Early observers suggested that it is sex role reversed, yet males appear to be the most territorial sex and Golo's work suggests that the birds are socially monogamous.

Current Research Group
Note : I am on sabbatical leave in 2006, and so have not taken on students this year. I welcome applications from PhD students intending to start in 2007.

• Gardner, Janet. Post-doctoral Research Associate. The evolution of avian alarm calls.
• Golo Maurer . PhD candidate. The breeding biology and mating system of pheasant coucals.
• Ben Pitcher. Research Assistant and recent Honours graduate. Pattern calls and neighbour recognition.
• Dirk Platzen. Visiting Fellow. Parent-vocal interactions in white-browed scrubwrens.
• Rae, Stuart. Visiting Fellow. Consultant biologist, currently studying the impacts of windfarms of Scottish bird fauna, including on the behaviour of golden eagles.
• Judith Scarl. Visiting Fellow and PhD candidate at Cornell University. Acoustic communication and breeding strategies in galahs. http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/neurobio/department/Graduate_Students/Scarl_Judith/Scarl.html I am a graduate student in Cornell's department of Neurobiology and Behavior/Lab of Ornithology, working in Jack Bradbury's parrot communication group. My field work in Australia focuses on acoustic communication in galahs; specifically, I am looking at whether sex differences in calling behaviour and call structure play a role in mate attraction. Also, I am exploring the possibility that galahs may use mimicry in vocal interactions; this project parallels studies conducted by my lab on Aratinga canicularis in Costa Rica. When I am not chasing big pink biting birds up trees, I am working hard at remembering to put all the "u"s in words such as "behaviour" and "colour."

Lab alumni [Includes students, visiting fellows and post-docs]

• Ansell, Dean. (Honours 2004) Song and song matching in the white-browed scrubwren. Scientific officer in the Murray Darling Commission.
• Crowley, Camille. (Honours 1992). Status signalling in the Dusky Moorhen ( Gallinula tenebrosa ). Science teacher.
• Detto, Tanya. (Honours 2002). Cosupervised with Jochen Zeil. Use of colour in signaling in the semephore crab. PhD student, Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University.
• Ebert, Daniel. (PhD 2004) Social behaviour and breeding biology of the yellow-rumped thornbill. Research associate, School of Botany and Zoology (with Rod Peakall), and Centre of Resource and Environmental Studies (with Rob Heinsohn), ANU.
• Gardner, Janet. (PhD 2002) Social behaviour and breeding biology of the speckled warbler. Post-doctoral Research Associate in the School of Botany & Zoology.
• Hall, Michelle. (Honours 1992; PhD 2001). Antiphonal duetting and reproductive strategies in magpie larks. Post-doctoral fellow at Cornell University.
• Horn, Andy. (Visiting Fellow 2000). Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Canada.
• Krebs, Elsie. (PhD 1999). Breeding biology and parental care in crimson rosellas. Landbird biologist, Canadian Wildlife Service, Vancouver.
• Leavesley, Adam. (Honours 2003 with University Medal). The information conveyed in the alarm calls of white-browed scrubwrens. PhD candidate, School of Resources, Environment & Society, Australian National University.
• Leedman, Ashley. (Honours 1994; PhD 2000). Brood division and post-fledging parental care in the White-browed Scrubwren. Team Leader, Climate Impact Sciences, Bureau of Rural Sciences, Department for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Canberra.
• Leonard, Marty. (Sabbatical Visiting Fellow 2000) Professor, Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.
• Loiterton, Stephen. 1994. (Honours). Foraging behaviour in antlion larvae (Neuroptera: Myrmeleontidae).
• Nicholls, James. (Honours 1998 with University Medal). The evolution of breeding behaviour in the thornbills Acanthiza (Aves: Pardalotidae). Cosupervised with Michael Double and David Rowell. Post-doctoral fellow, University of Edinburgh.
• Parks, Emily. (Visiting Fellow 2002). Ecological acoustics of scrubwrens. Completed MSc on polar bears at the University of Alberta, and is now in Halifax.
• Percy, Diana. (Visiting Fellow 2001) Psyllid acoustics. Currently at the UBC Botanical Gardens and Centre for Plant Research, and Smithsonian Institution.
• Pitcher, Ben. (Honours 2005) Pattern calls and neighbour recognition in the white-browed scrubwren. Currently a research assistant, School of Botany & Zoology, Australian National University.
• Platzen, Dirk. (PhD 2004) Parent-nestling vocal interactions in the white-browed scrubwren. Currently a Scientist, Climate Impact Sciences, Bureau of Rural Sciences, Department for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Canberra, and Visiting Fellow, Australian National University.
• Rogers, Amy. (Visiting Fellow 1998). Cooperative breeding in scrubwrens. Recently completed a PhD on duetting in whipbirds with Raoul Mulder, University of Melbourne, and Naomi Langmore, ANU.
• Slagsvold, Tore. (Sabbatical Visiting Fellow 2000). Professor, Biology Institute, University of Oslo, Norway.
• Whittingham, Linda. (Post-doctoral Research Associate 1992-93). The mating system and cooperative breeding of white-browed scrubwrens. Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
• Yezerinac, Stephen. (Post-doctoral Research Associate 1995-97) The mating system and cooperative breeding of white-browed scrubwrens. Now in the Biology Department at Reed College, Oregon.

Selected Publications PDFs
Fallow, P.M., Magrath, R.D. 2009. Eavesdropping on other species: mutual interspecific understanding of urgency information in avian alarm calls. Animal Behaviour 79: 411-417.

Hingee, M., Magrath, R.D. 2009. Flights of fear: a mechanical wing whistle sounds the alarm in a flocking bird. Proc. R. Soc. B 276: 4173-4179.

Magrath, R.D., Pitcher, B.J., Gardner, J.L. 2009. An avian eavesdropping network: alarm signal reliability and heterospecific response. Behavioral Ecology 20: 745-752.

Magrath, R.D., Pitcher, B.J., Gardner, J.L. 2009. Recognition of other species' aerial alarm calls: speaking the same language or learning another? Proc. R. Soc. B 276: 769-774.

Maurer, G., Smith, C., Süsser, M., Magrath, R.D. 2008. Solo and duet calling in the pheasant coucal: sex and individual call differences in a nesting cuckoo with reversed size dimorphism. Australian Journal of Zoology 56: 143-149.

Magrath, R.D., Pitcher, B.J., Dalziell, A.H. 2007. How to be fed but not eaten: nestling responses to parental food calls and the sound of a predator's footsteps. Animal Behaviour 74: 1117-1129.

Magrath, R.D., Pitcher, B.J., Gardner, J.L. 2007. A mutual understanding? Interspecific responses by birds to each other's aerial alarm calls. Behavioral Ecology 18: 944-951.

Hall, M.L., Magrath, R.D. 2007. Temporal coordination signals coalition quality. Current Biology 17(11): R406-R407.

Magrath, R., Platzen, D., Kondo, J., (2006) “From nestling calls to fledgling silence: adaptive timing of change in response to aerial alarm calls”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences, Vol 273, pp 2335-2341.

Leavesley A & Magrath RD. 2005. Communicating about danger: urgency alarm calling in a bird. Animal Behaviour 70 : 365-373.

Platzen D. & Magrath RD. 2005. Adaptive differences in response to two types of parental alarm calls in altricial nestlings. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B 272 : 1101-1106.

Magrath RD, Johnstone RA & Heinsohn RG. 2004. Reproductive skew. Ecology and Evolution of Cooperative Breeding in Birds . W. D. Koenig and J. L. Dickinson. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press : 157-176.

Platzen D & Magrath RD. 2004. Parental alarm calls suppress nestling vocalization. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B 271 : 1271-1276.

Crowley CE & Magrath RD. 2004. Shields of offence: signalling competitive ability in the dusky moorhen, Gallinula tenebrosa . Australian Journal of Zoology 52 : 463-474.

Detto T, Zeil J, Magrath RD & Hunt S. 2004. Sex, size and colour in a semi-terrestrial crab, Heloecius cordiformis (H. Milne Edwards, 1837). Journal of Experimental marine Biology 302 : 1-15.

Gardner JL, Magrath RD & Olsen P. 2004. Speckled warblers break cooperative rules: absence of helping in a group-living member of the Pardalotidae. Animal Behavior 67 : 719-728.

Gardner JL, Magrath RD & Kokko H. 2003. Stepping stones of life: natal dispersal in the group-living but non-cooperative speckled warbler. Animal Behaviour 66: 521-530.

Maurer G, Magrath RD, Leonard ML, Horn AG, & Donnelly C. 2003. Begging to differ: scrubwren nestlings beg to alarm calls and vocalize when parents are absent. Animal Behaviour 65: 1045-1055.

Leedman AW & Magrath RD. 2003. Long-term brood division and exclusive parental care in a cooperatively breeding passerine. Animal Behaviour 65: 1093-1108.

Magrath RD. 2001. Group breeding dramatically increases reproductive success of yearling but not older female scrubwrens: a model for cooperatively breeding birds? Journal of Animal Ecology 70:370-385. 

Nicholls JA, Double MC, Rowell DM & Magrath RD. 2001. The evolution of cooperative and pair breeding in the thornbills Acanthiza (Aves: Pardalotidae). Journal of Avian Biology 31:165-176.

Hall ML & Magrath RD. 2000. Duetting and mate-guarding in Australian magpie-larks ( Grallina cyanoleuca ). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 47:180-187.

Krebs EA & Magrath RD. 2000. Food allocation in crimson rosella broods: parents differ in their responses to chick hunger Animal Behaviour 59:739-751.

Magrath RD & Heinsohn RG. 2000. Reproductive skew in birds: models, problems and prospects. Journal of Avian Biology 31:247-258.

Magrath RD, Leedman AW, Gardner JL, Giannasca A, Nathan AC, Yezerinac SM & Nicholls JA. 2000. Life in the slow lane: reproductive life history of the white-browed scrubwren, an Australian endemic. Auk 117:479-489.

Magrath RD & Whittingham LA. 1997. Subordinate males are more likely to help if unrelated to the breeding female in cooperatively-breeding white-browed scrubwrens. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 41:185-192.

Magrath RD & Yezerinac SM. 1997. Facultative helping does not influence reproductive success or survival in cooperatively-breeding white-browed scrubwrens. Journal of Animal Ecology 66:658-670.

Whittingham LA, Dunn PO & Magrath RD. 1997. Relatedness, polyandry and extra-group paternity in the cooperatively-breeding white-browed scrubwren ( Sericornis frontalis ). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 40:261-70

Desrochers A & Magrath RD. 1996. Divorce in the European blackbird: seeking greener pastures? In J. M. Black. (ed.), Partnerships in Birds: The Study of Monogamy : 177-191. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Crick HQP, Gibbons DW & Magrath RD. 1993. Seasonal variation in clutch size in British birds. Journal of Animal Ecology 62:263-273.

Desrochers A, Magrath RD. 1993. Age-specific fecundity in European blackbirds ( Turdus merula ): individual and population trends. Auk 110:255-263.

Magrath RD. 1992. The effect of egg mass on the growth and survival of blackbirds: a field experiment. Journal of Zoology, Londo n 227:639-653.

Magrath RD. 1992. Roles of egg mass and incubation pattern in establishment of hatching hierarchies in the blackbird ( Turdus merula ). Auk 109:474-487.

Magrath RD. 1991. Nestling weight and juvenile survival in the blackbird, Turdus merula . Journal of Animal Ecology 60:335-351.

Magrath RD. 1990. Hatching asynchrony in altricial birds. Biological Reviews 65:587-622.

Magrath RD. 1989. Hatching asynchrony and reproductive success in the blackbird. Nature 339:536-538.

Possible Honours Projects
Please contact me to discuss possible Honours projects, given your experience and interests. Most current work is focused on acoustic communication. The population of scrubwrens on which I work is fully colour-banded and close to the university, so it's excellent for Honours projects.

Funding
My work has been funded by grants under both the Large and Small ARC schemes. My PhD students have received funding from a variety of sources.

Courses Taught
Currently I teach in the following courses:

• Biology 1003 : Evolution, Ecology and Genetics.
  I usually coordinate this first-year course and teach the behavioural ecology module. This course aims to introduce some of the major concepts in the study of life, focusing on evolutionary and ecological questions. The program consists of four modules: Genetics, Evolution, Ecology & Behavioural Ecology. We emphasize that biology is the study of life, not a compendium of facts.
• Biology 3131 : Evolutionary and Behavioural Ecology.
  This is a team-taught third-year course usually coordinated by Andrew Cockburn. The course is designed to introduce students to advanced concepts in evolutionary and behavioural ecology, and to bring them up-to-date in selected areas of current research, including that carried out in the School of Botany and Zoology.
• Biology 3132: Field Studies in Behavioural Ecology.
  I have coordinated the course since it was introduced. This course is normally taken at the same time as BIOL3131, and deals with carrying out research on the behavioural ecology of free-living animals. Students work in tutorial groups to develop hypotheses about behaviour that are tested during a week-long field trip. Results are presented in a poster at the course 'conference' and in a report in the form of a scientific paper. The course emphasises the design and effective reporting of scientific research, and exposes students to all of the stages of carrying out and reporting original research. Research topics in recent years have included: anti-predator behaviour in kangaroos; foraging behaviour of antlions and bees; sex differences in plumage and vigilance; social foraging in seagulls; sex differences in foraging in oystercatchers; song and alarm calls in birds; schooling in fish.
• In some years I also contribute to or coordinate Biology 2111: Australian Wildlife