Dr. Simeon Quirinus Smeele

I work with social and vocal complexity in parrots. I try to understand if parrots living in a more complex social context develop more complex vocalisations. For this I study the monk parakeet, which is an invasive species in many European cities. Furthermore, I study how vocal systems coevolve with social systems. Looking at the same question from an ultimate perspective. Besides doing comparative analysis of parrots at the species level, I will again use monk parakeets to see if there is a signal of cultural evolution of vocal systems. I will compare populations in Europe with different invasion histories to see if new or altered vocalisations are innovated and retained in the population.