Martim Melo

I am broadly interested in the processes generating diversity – from identifying the factors that drive population divergence to the evolution of reproductive isolation (speciation).

My research focuses on the diversification of the bird fauna of Africa, and in particular in its oceanic and ecological islands – natural speciation centres that are amenable for the study of this complex process. I have worked in the Gulf of Guinea for the last 10 years, and where I carried out research for my PhD. I am now extending my research to little known Afromontane centres (Angola and Mozambican highlands) and to the remote and aptly named Inaccessible Island from the Tristan da Cunha archipelago. My work uses a combination of ecological, morphological, behavioural and molecular data together with field experiments. The outputs of my research feed directly into my long-standing and active interest in conservation, by providing a better understanding of the diversity patterns within centres of endemism and by shedding light on the potential of organisms to adapt to human-altered environments. I am a research associate of the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, South Africa, where I collaborate with Peter Ryan. I have also close collaborations with Bengt Hansson (University of Lund, Sweden), Michael Mills (A.P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute, Nigeria), Rauri Bowie (University of California at Berkeley, US) and Claire Doutrelant (CEFE-CNRS, France). For more details see projects, my list of collaborations and my CV. You can also download my PhD thesis.