Daniel Parejo-Pulido

My research lies mainly within behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology, with a particular interest in animal communication, parental care and the conflicts of interest that arise among family members. During my PhD I studied parent–offspring communication in birds, focusing on nestling begging signals and on the mechanisms that determine how parents allocate resources among their young. Through field experiments, behavioural analyses and physiological approaches, I tested some of the main predictions of classic honest signalling models.

Currently, as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Gdańsk (Poland), I am broadening this perspective by studying the family as a system of interactions in which different conflicts of interest among all its members can coexist. In particular, I investigate how coordination between parents in their nest visits and food provisioning may help regulate sexual conflict between the two parents, parent–offspring conflict and sibling competition. My aim is to understand how communication and behavioural coordination allow these opposing interests to be managed, and how these mechanisms have contributed to the evolution of parental care and family life.

In parallel, I maintain an independent line of research in entomology, focused mainly on the faunistics, ecology and systematics of arthropods, especially the family Mutillidae (Hymenoptera), thus combining my interest in evolutionary ecology with the study of biodiversity and natural history.

I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a Master’s degree in Introduction to Scientific Research at the University of Extremadura (UEx). During this period I worked for four years with Dr Carlos de la Cruz monitoring a population of Iberian magpies (Cyanopica cooki), studying different aspects of their cooperative breeding system. In the final year of my degree I was awarded a research collaboration grant and later, during my Master’s, I joined Dr Alfonso Marzal’s group to study the relationships between avian malaria and parental care in this same species.

In 2019 I began my PhD at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), carried out at the Institute for Game and Wildlife Research (IREC) under the supervision of Lorenzo Pérez-Rodríguez, Tomás Redondo (EBD-CSIC) and Javier Viñuela. Using a wild population of spotless starlings (Sturnus unicolor) as a model, I combined field experiments, nest monitoring, behavioural recordings, biological sampling and laboratory analyses to study parent–offspring communication. During this period I also undertook a research stay at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) with Prof. Wendt Müller, broadening my experimental experience and establishing new international collaborations. I defended my PhD thesis on 31 January 2025, obtaining the highest grade (sobresaliente cum laude) and the International Doctorate Mention.