Dave Wilson is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Biology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. His research focuses on the interplay among animal communication, antipredator behaviour, and sexual selection. Most of his research focuses on birds, but he has also worked with squirrels, frogs, and marine invertebrates. He received his PhD from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and his post-doctoral training from the University of Windsor. In 2014, he joined the faculty at Memorial University, where he teaches courses in introductory psychology, statistics, and animal behaviour.
Graduate Students
Sydney Collins completed an MSc on the spatial and foraging ecology of Leach’s Storm Petrels in Bill Montevecchi’s lab in spring 2021. She loved the petrels so much that she decided to immediately begin a PhD on the same species, this time focusing on the individual consistency of behavioural traits at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Sydney is in the Cognitive and Behavioural Ecology Program and is co-supervised by Dave Wilson and Bill Montevecchi.
Jessika Lamarre joined the lab in 2019 as an MSc student in the Cognitive and Behavioural Ecology program, but then rolled into the PhD program in January 2021. She is using comparative and experimental research to investigate the effects of omega-3 fatty acids on avian cognition, using ring-billed gulls as a model species.
Chirathi Wijekulathilaka joined our group as an MSc student in the Cognitive and Behavioural Ecology program in May 2018 after completing a BSc at the University of Colombo. Her Honours thesis with Dr. Sampath Seneviratne focused on geographic variation in genetic, morphological, and behavioural traits in populations of dark-fronted babblers in India and Sri Lanka. For her MSc research, Chirathi is investigating ecological, morphological, and behavioural predictors of fitness in dark-eyed juncos in Newfoundland.
Former Graduate Students
Miguel Mejias joined the lab in 2017 after completing a BSc at Trent University and an MSc on tropicbirds at Memorial University. His PhD research investigated the evolution of song in the Vireonidae and, in particular, in the Bermudian white-eyed vireo. He completed his PhD in the Biology program in fall 2022.
Kaylee Busniuk joined the lab in 2017 after completing her BSc at Lakehead University. As a MSc student in the Cognitive and Behavioural Ecology program, she investigated kleptoparasitism of Atlantic puffins by herring gulls in Newfoundland’s Witless Bay Ecological Reserve.
Katrina Shwedack completed her BSc at Lakehead University, and then joined the lab as a M.Sc. student in the Cognitive and Behavioural Ecology program in May of 2017. She investigated the effects of anthropogenic noise on the songs of dark-eyed juncos, and how the resulting changes in song structure affect signal efficacy.
Jeffrey Ethier joined the lab in 2016 after completing his BSc in Biology at Trent University. His research used a new microphone array technology to ascertain the habitat and microhabitat preferences of landbird species at risk in the boreal forest of Labrador. He completed his MSc in the Cognitive and Behavioural Ecology program in fall 2018.
Bronwen Hennigar began her MSc in the Cognitive and Behavioural Ecology program in 2016 after completing an undergraduate degree in Biology at Trent University. Her research used an experimental approach to disentangle the effects of anthropogenic light and sound on the altered singing and spatial behaviour of birds in Labrador. Bronwen completed her program in fall 2018.