Rita Fortuna

Rita is a behavioural and evolutionary ecologist from Portugal. She studied Biology at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (Portugal) and joined The Sociable Weaver Project as a Master student in 2015. After graduating, Rita worked for 3 months as a field assistant on a project on Iberian magpies in Spain, after which she obtained a PhD scholarship to keep studying the behaviour and ecology of sociable weavers. Rita has therefore been working with the Sociable Weaver Project for over 6 years. Her research is focused on maternal reproductive strategies and how these vary according to ecological and social factors, as well as on better understanding cooperative care rules and offspring survival benefits in the presence of helpers. Broadly, she’s keen on understanding how animals, preferably birds, behave and adapt as their environment varies.