Niki Teunissen

I am a behavioural ecologist, often combining intense field work with detailed observations on marked animals. I got my BSc and MSc degree from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. For my MSc, I travelled to the Seychelles to study interspecific competition between birds, and to the Kimberley (Western Australia) to study benefits of group living in endangered purple-crowned fairy-wrens. I have continued working with the purple-crowned fairy-wrens ever since. For my PhD at Monash University, my research focused on the benefits of cooperation and living in social groups and explains why subordinate fairy-wrens help raise others’ offspring and defend against predators. I continued as postdoctoral research fellow at Monash University, conducting research with a conservation focus, investigating environmental impacts on breeding success and survival. My current research at Wageningen University (the Netherlands), focuses on understanding why many animals stay at home to live in social groups instead of dispersing to breed independently elsewhere.