My research focuses on understanding biodiversity and its role in maintaining the structure and function of global ecosystems. I use a combination of approaches from lab- and field-based experiments to phylogenetic modelling and spatial mapping. Most of this work uses the world's birds as a study system, but increasingly focuses on other components of biodiversity, from plants and insects to primates and people. I am interested in using these insights to help us predict and manage the response of ecosystems and food-production systems to global change, with applications from biodiversity conservation to sustainable development. My main interest lies in tropical ecosystems but recent work is increasingly global in scope.