Sonia Kleindorfer

Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Vienna

Sonia Kleindorfer (SK) is an organismal systems biologist with a research focus on how animal behavior shapes evolutionary dynamics in birds and parasites. She did her university study at University of Pennsylvania (Bachelor: Biological Basis of Behavior), University of Vienna (PhD: Zoology) and University of Washington School of Medicine (Postdoc). SK studies avian development from egg to adult in the wild, focusing on the following questions: (i) How does prenatal and early life experience shape phenotypes across life stages? (ii) What is the interface between phenotypic traits and emergent properties of groups that can be harnessed for conservation?

Her main scientific discoveries to date are (i) experimental demonstration that some songbird embryos have sensorimotor vocal learning in ovo that is dependent on maternal vocal tutoring prior to hatch, and (ii) experimental evidence that parasite-induced malformation in Darwin's finches blurs their vocal mating signal and promotes hybridization, leading to species collapse.

Sonia Kleindorfer studies avian development from egg to adult in the wild. She uses interdisciplinary approaches to measure the causes and consequences of phenotypic variation across life stages and studies the emergent properties of groups. Field observation of free-living birds and mammals in their natural environment is a defining feature of her research and this provides another pillar of her research in conservation behavior. SK focusses on the following questions: (i) How does prenatal and early life experience shape phenotypes across life stages? (ii) What is the interface between phenotypic traits and emergent properties of groups that can be harnessed for conservation? To address these questions, she uses a combination of behavioral, genetic, bioacoustical and recognition software programs and works in interdisciplinary teams.
For more information see her webpages:
https://klf.univie.ac.at/
https://klf.univie.ac.at/people/
https://www.flinders.edu.au/people/sonia.kleindorfer