About the Project
Organisms face environments that change on multiple spatial and temporal scales. From the slow, decadal, pace of climate change, to short-term extreme climatic events, from major latitudinal gradients to sharp small-scale environmental gradients to the constant flux of social environments. Behaviour is a key mechanism mediating the way that these environmental drivers produce evolutionary effects. Long-term population studies of birds provide a unique tool to address the way that environmental change at multiple scales drives evolution.
Aims
This project will focus on understanding the causes and consequences of individual variation in phenotypes using long-term population studies of birds. The precise question and approach depends on the student's interests, but could range from studying dispersal and habitat selection, inheritance and selection of life history traits, social and cultural evolution. Previous work by my group will give an idea of the diversity of approaches and questions possible (see: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=pTdxVdIAAAAJ)
Methods
Methods depend on the project area but can include: quantitative genetics, molecular genetics, field observations and experiments, computationally intensive work with acoustic, image and video data sets. A combination of existing and newly collected data are possible. The long-term studies began in 1947 and have run continuously since, and now comprise data on the life histories of hundreds of thousands of individual blue and great tits from tens of thousands of breeding attempts. These are now complemented by rich environmental data sets on tree phenology obtained by drone-mapping at 3cm resolution since 2023, a grid of ~800 temperature loggers sampling every 10 minutes, and large-scale acoustic data from a grid of 81 audiomoths sampling from Feb-July each year.
Project code
BS01
Funding
This project is part of the DPhil in Biology programme, and is not a funded course at the University of Oxford; as such, students are expected to explore options for funding. However, we anticipate being able to offer around 6 full graduate scholarships to incoming DPhil students in 2027/28.
You will be automatically considered for several Oxford scholarships, which cover fees and stipend, if you fulfil the eligibility criteria and submit your graduate application by 6 January 2026. Scholarships are awarded based on academic achievement and potential to excel as a DPhil student.
For further details about searching for funding as a graduate student visit the graduate study information on our website.
Eligibility
For full entry requirements and eligibility information, please see the main admissions page.
How to apply
The deadline for applications for 2027/28 entry is 6 January 2027. We will continue to accept applications submitted after this date, but these late applications will not be considered for scholarship funding.
You can find the admissions portal and further information about eligibility and the DPhil in Biology Programme at the University's graduate admissions page. Please quote the Project Reference Code alongside the title in the 'Proposed field and title of research project, if applicable' field in the application form.
Institution website: https://www.biology.ox.ac.uk/dphil
References
López-Idiáquez D, Cole EF, Regan CE & Sheldon BC. 2026. Phenological plasticity enables thermal homeostasis in a wild bird population. Science Advances 12, eaeg5926.
Estandía A, Merino Recalde N, Slate J, Sheldon BC. 2026. The genetic consequences of dispersal and immigration in a wild great tit population. Mol. Ecol. 35, e70206.
Merino Recalde N, Estandía A, Keen S, Cole EF & Sheldon BC. 2025. The demographic drivers of cultural evolution in bird song. Current Biology 35, 1631-1640.