I am working with wild rock doves in the Clegg lab.
I am specifically interested in how hybridisation with feral domestic pigeons is threatening their genetic integrity. This involves using genetics along with morphological and plumage traits to explore variation in the level of domestic introgression between different dove populations. This information is important if we wish to conserve populations of these birds (and even identify whether they still exist in anything close to an unadulterated wild form), but also gives us a valuable model system with which to explore the process of genetic extinction.
