Ian Ausprey, PhD

I am an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University in the Department of Ecology & Conservation Biology. I am broadly interested in questions related to the ecology, evolution, and conservation of biotic communities across different environmental and Anthropogenic disturbance gradients, with a special fondness for birds, mountains, and tropical ecosystems. I completed my PhD at the University of Florida and postdoctoral work at Universität Bern in Switzerland

Affiliations

Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Bern
Explorer, National Geographic Society
Research Associate, Florida Museum of Natural History
Treasurer, Neotropical Ornithological Society
Chair, North American Banding Council
Past Councilor, Association of Field Ornithologists (2016-2022)

Research Gate Profile
Google Scholar Profile
Email: ian.ausprey@ag.tamu.edu

Current Students

Mei Rao

Mei is a PhD student as part of the EEB program at Texas A&M University. Mei brings extensive experience in evolutionary biology and genomics that she acquired during her undergrad years at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They are broadly interested in developing a project that examines the mechanistic impacts of Anthropogenic disturbance on animal ecology, using physiological, genomic, and transcriptomic approaches. Check out Mei’s website!

Gerson Meza Mori

Gerson is a PhD student at Universidad Nacional Toribio Rodriguez de Mendoza in Chachapoyas, Peru. He is interested in the impacts of forest fragmentation on avian community structure and connectivity across high elevation cloud forests at tree line, the ceja de selva. I provide support as an external co-advisor.

Past Students at University of Bern

Rico Felder

Rico completed his MSc at Uni Bern studying the post-fledging survival and habitat selection of European Hoopoes. He previously completed his BSc at Uni Bern studying the functionality of different radio transmitter attachment techniques. He is now incorporating data from across all three years of the study to write a manuscript on the species’ survival and habitat selection.

Lisa Moser

Lisa completed her BSc at Uni Bern studying the behavioral development of juvenile European Hoopoes during the first weeks after leaving the nest. She also helped with radio-tracking juveniles as part of the Hoopoe post-fledging study. She finished her thesis in Fall 2023 and is preparing it now for publication.

Laeticia Studer

Laeticia completed her MSc in 2025. She studied the movement ecology of fledgling European Hoopoes and led the field season for a third year of data collection in summer 2024.

Pascal Pini

Pascal completed his BSc at Uni Bern as part of the Hoopoe project in 2024. He quantified different body conditions metrics and looked at how they related to fledgling movement during the first few days after leaving the nest.

Luca Robbi

Luca completed his MSc at Uni Bern in Fall 2025. He studied the effectiveness of thermal-imaging drones for the quantification of microclimate gradients across alpine landscapes as part of the alpine bird project.

Alice Ruffieux

Alice completed her BSc on the alpine bird project in Spring 2024. She studied microclimate variation in internal microhabitat structures found in alpine landscapes and will continue the project in 2025-2026 for her MSc.

Célestin Luisier

For his MSc thesis at Uni Bern Célestin studied one of Europe’s most enigmatic birds: the Wallcreeper. The species is uniquely adapted to forage and nest on vertical cliffs in high alpine areas, and Célestin used species distribution models and intensive field surveys to make predictions about how the species will respond to different global warming scenarios. He finished in Fall 2023 and is preparing his thesis for publication.

Serena Poloni

Serena completed her MSc in 2025. She studied the impact of bird-deterrent nets on avian mortality in Swiss vineyards.

Lucy Novovitch

Lucy completed her MSc at Uni Bern in Summer 2023 after spending 4 months in Tanzania collecting camera trap data on mammals within the Ipole Wildlife Management Area. Her thesis examined how disturbance associated with multiple use community conservation areas potentially impacts mammal occupancy. She collaborated with Dr. Yves Hausser at HEPIA in Geneva, the NGO ADAP, and the local community conservation organization JUHIWAI.

Nicolas Mamani Cabana

Nicolas is from Arequipa, Peru and worked as a field assistant for my doctoral research in Peru for three years. He spent much of his time tracking cloud forest birds using radio telemetry and became interested in movement ecology. Thanks to his determination, he learned how to conduct movement analyses in ArcGIS and R and wrote a lovely paper on home range size of the Green-and-Black Fruiteater published in Spanish in Ornitología Neotropical.

Field Assistants in Peru

Twenty student field assistants from Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Argentina helped with my doctoral research over five years of fieldwork in the Andes of northern Peru. I continue to publish data from this project and am indebted to them for the tremendous amount of energy and dedication that made the project a success.

M. Antezana Aponte, A.R. Antezana Ccencho, P.B. Ayala Nagao, E.V. Berrocal Rodríguez, J.F. Castro Ospina, J. Cereghetti, K.M. Chumpitaz Trujillo, D. Guevara Apaza, A.C. Felix Caballero, E. Flores Cabrejos, A.S. Herrera Reto, L.L. Horna Ordinola, R.A. Huayanca Munarriz, N. Mamani Cabana, E.I. Nuñez Cortez, J.W. Ortiz Herrera, P.M. Ordoñez Buezo de Manzanedo, A.C. Paca Condori, N.J. Peña Girón, R.O. Pérez Purizaca, J.N. Pisconte Camargo, T.V. Poma Coyla, V. Rimarichín Cayatopa, M.C. Ríos Vásquez, V.E. Sánchez Cabrerra, M.E. Seminario Rebolledo, & W. Zhou