Applications to conservation and applied evolution

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Since my research involves avian brood parasitism and nest predation, trait loss and relaxed selection, invasive species, and genetic diversity, much of my work invites application to social and environmental issues.  Thus I regularly distill such implications from my findings and attempt to relate my research interests to relevant issues, most often in conservation and applied evolution.  I am aided in these projects by my graduate training in the philosophy of environmental and interpersonal ethics.  For example, I have reviewed the ecological situations under which nest predation is likely to increase on forest edges, have presented the village weaverbird as a case study in the prediction of invasiveness in introduced species, have discussed in invited essays the ecological impacts of bird damage to crops and the relevance of bird song to human speech research, and have published several papers and given several invited lectures on the issues involved in studying the evolution of learned behavioral traits in humans.  Following a New York Times article on my rapid evolution work, several media outlets have related this research to the importance of quality science education.  Also, I have planned two collaborative applied papers in connection with the NESCent relaxed selection working group: one on evolutionary responses our agricultural and medical activities have caused in many organisms, and another dealing with the impact of environmental changes on the evolution of introduced species.