Lucy Aplin

I am a Max Planck Research Group Leader at the MPI for Animal Behaviour in Germany, where I head the Cognitive and Cultural Ecology (CCE) Lab.

Our research explores the interactions between cognition, sociality and ecology in birds. We are especially interested their emergent properties - social networks, animal culture and cultural evolution.

My current and past work has asked questions like: what is the process by which new behaviours emerge, spread and persist in animal populations? Can cultures that establish this way also change over time in response to environmental and social drivers?

Recently, I have added a second focus to my work, asking how social cognition and culture can influence the ability of species to exhibit rapid behavioural adaptation, through diffusion of innovation and cultural inheritance. Urban areas are perhaps the most highly modified and rapidly changing environments on the planet, and so we look at this question in the context of urban persistence of sulphur-crested cockatoos.