Radio-tracking birds in Costa Rican rainforest
  • Professor, School Of Biological Sciences
  • Visiting Professor, Molecular Biology and Genetics, Koç University
  • Founder and Director, Turkish environmental non-profit organization, KuzeyDoğa Society
801-585-1052

Research Summary

Avian ecology, biogeography, climate change, conservation biology, ecosystem services, ecotourism, keystone species, landscape ecology, ornithology, mountains, restoration ecology, tropical biology

Education

  • Ph.D., Department of Biology - Ecology, Stanford University Center for Conservation Biology. Project: Causes and Consequences of Bird Extinctions
  • B.A., Biology, Harvard University. Project: The effects of logging-based habitat modification on the vegetation structure and forest bird communities of the Kibale Forest National Park, Uganda
  • B.A., Anthropology, Harvard University

Biography

I am a conservation ecologist, ornithologist, tropical biologist, and wildlife photographer (http://instagram.com/cagansekercioglu). My doctoral research focused on the causes and consequences of bird extinctions around the world. I have conducted ornithological fieldwork in Alaska, Angola, Colorado, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Turkey and Uganda to investigate the ecological factors behind the extinction-proneness of certain groups, such as tropical understory insectivores. With my students, I have compiled and continue to analyze a database of all the world's bird species to understand the distributions and determinants of avian life history traits and extinction correlates, and to assess the implications of avian extinctions on bird-mediated ecosystem processes and services, such as pollination, seed dispersal, and control of insect outbreaks. In addition to my empirical research, I am currently conducting community-based conservation projects in Ethiopia and Turkey. Our objectives are to integrate conservation education, research, capacity building and income generation, to increase the contribution of ecotourism, especially birdwatching, to community-based conservation in the developing world, and to improve the role of the private sector in the conservation of biodiversity. My ultimate goal is to prevent extinctions and consequent collapses of critical ecosystem processes while making sure that human communities benefit from conservation as much as the wildlife they help conserve.