Collective behaviour
How patterns at the scale of small groups, large colonies or entire species emerge? Which is the role of individual behaviour?

Jovani, R ., Lascelles, B., Garamszegi, L., Mavor, R., Thaxter, CB., and Oro, D. (2016). Colony size and foraging range in seabirds. Oikos, 125:968-974 pdf

Cortés-Avizanda, A.*, Jovani, R.*, Donázar, J.A. & Grimm, V. (2014). Bird sky networks: how do avian scavengers use social information to find carrion? Ecology 95:1799–1808. DOI pdf, Suppl. Mat., NetLogo model (*Authors contributed equally to this work)

Jovani, R. & Grimm, V. (2008) Breeding synchrony in colonial birds: from local stress to global harmony. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 275: 1557–1563.

Jovani, R. & Tella, J.L. (2007) Fractal bird nest distribution produces power law colony sizes Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 274: 2465-2469.

Fractal plumages
Complex heterogeneous plumage traits has been elusive to old approaches. We quantify them with fractal geometry. We are finding fractal properties biologically relevant. We are now moving to multifractals.

Pérez-Rodríguez, L., Jovani, R., Stevens,M (2017) Shape matters: animal colour patterns as signals of individual quality. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 00:000-000.

Jovani, R., Pérez-Rodríguez, L., Mougeot, F. (2013) Fractal geometry for animal biometrics: a response to Kühl and Burghardt. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 28: 499-500.

Pérez-Rodríguez, L., Jovani, R., Mougeot, F. (2013) Fractal geometry of a complex plumage trait reveals bird’s quality. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 280: 20122783.

Feather fault bars
Fault bars are feather-growth errors that weaken feathers. We are interested on the role of fault bars in bird evolution. We are now developing a semi-quantitative framework on the causes of fault bars based on a comprehensive review of literature.

Jovani, R. and Rohwer, S. (2016) Fault bars in bird feathers: mechanisms, and ecological and evolutionary causes and consequences. Biological reviews 00: 000-000 DOI

Jovani, R., Montalvo, T., Savaté, S. (2014) Fault bars and bacterial infection. Journal of Ornithol 155, 3, DOI  pdf

Jovani, R. & Tella, J.L. (2004) Age-related environmental sensitivity and weather mediated nestling mortality in white storks (Ciconia ciconia). Ecography 27: 611-618. doi: 10.1111/j.0906-7590.2004.03925.x

Jovani, R. & Blas, J. (2004). Adaptive allocation of stress-induced deformities on bird feathers. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 17: 294-301. doi: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2003.00680.x pdf

Host-symbiont evolutionary ecology
How biodiversity emerge in host-symbiont systems? We are now studying the interaction between feather mites and passerine birds with massive parallel sequencing tools and networks analyses.

Doña, J.*, Proctor, H.*, Mironov, S.*, Serrano, D., and Jovani, R. (2016). Global associations between birds and vane-dwelling feather mites. Ecology, 97:3242 DOI (*Authors contributed equally to this work)

Doña, J.*, Moreno-García, M.*, Criscione, CD., Serrano, D and Jovani, R. (2015). Species mtDNA genetic diversity explained by infrapopulation size in a host-symbiont system. Ecology and Evolution, 00:000-000 pdf (*Authors contributed equally to this work)

Doña, J., Diaz‐Real, J., Mironov, S., Bazaga, P., Serrano, D., & Jovani, R. (2015). DNA barcoding and mini‐barcoding as a powerful tool for feather mite studies. Molecular Ecology Resources. Molecular Ecology Resources 15: 1216-1225 DOI pdf

Galván, I., Aguilera, E., Atiénzar, F., Barba, E., Blanco, G., Cantó, J.L. Cortés, V., Frías, O., Kovács, I., Meléndez, L., Møller, A.P., Monrós, J.S., Pap, P.L., Piculo, R., Senar, J.C., Serrano, D., Tella, J.L., Vágási, C.I., Vögeli, M. & Jovani, R. (2012) Feather mites (Acari: Astigmata) and body condition of their avian hosts: a large correlative study. Journal of Avian Biology 43: 273-279. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-048X.2012.05686.x

Jovani, R. & Tella, J.L. (2006) Parasite prevalence and sample size: misconceptions and solutions. Trends in Parasitology 22: 214-218.

Jovani, R. & Serrano, D. 2001. Feather mites (Astigmata) avoid moulting wing feathers of passerine birds. Animal Behaviour 62: 723-727.