Dr Rita Covas

Dr Rita Covas is a behavioural ecologist and evolutionary biologist with a strong interest in the evolution and consequences of sociality and a passion for fieldwork. She uses birds as study models having worked on cooperation using the sociable weaver for nearly 20 years and since 2016 she has been conducting research on another cooperative bird, the southern-ground hornbill. Rita also has a keen interest on island birds, and her research on this topic is mostly done through comparative work and fieldwork in the Gulf of Guinea islands. Rita is a Principal Researcher at CIBIO, University of Porto (Portugal) and Honorary Research Associate at the FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town (South Africa).