Raoul Mulder

{{Short description|Australian ornithologist and evolutionary ecologist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox scientist | honorific_prefix = Professor | name = Raoul Alexander Mulder | image = File:Raoul Mulder with black swan, Albert Park Lake, Melbourne.JPG | image_size = | alt = | caption = Raoul Mulder with a black swan at Albert Park Lake, Melbourne. | birth_date =  | birth_place = | death_date =  | death_place = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | citizenship = | fields = Evolutionary ecology | workplaces = University of Melbourne | alma_mater = Australian National University | thesis_title = Evolutionary ecology of the mating system of superb fairy-wrens | thesis_url = http://library.anu.edu.au/record=b1831867 | thesis_year = 1992<ref name=PhD>Raoul A. Mulder (1992) [http://library.anu.edu.au/record=b1831867 Evolutionary ecology of the mating system of superb fairy-wrens] PhD thesis, Australian National University.</ref> | doctoral_advisor = Andrew Cockburn | academic_advisors = | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | known_for = Evolution of bird mating systems | influences = | influenced = | awards = | signature =  | signature_alt = | website = https://raoulmulder.org/ | footnotes = | spouse = | children = }} '''Raoul Alexander Mulder''' is an Australian ornithologist and evolutionary ecologist. Based at the University of Melbourne, he is an Associate Dean of Academic Innovation for the Faculty of Science and former head of the School of BioSciences.

==Research career== Mulder completed his Bachelor of Science at Australian National University, majoring in biochemistry, but a field trip to Kakadu National Park turned his attention to biology instead.<ref name=FindAnExpert>[http://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/display/person4072 Find An Expert: Prof Raoul Mulder] The University of Melbourne. Retrieved 9 April 2016.</ref> He completed his Honours and PhD at the Australian National University under ornithologist Andrew Cockburn, submitting his thesis in 1992.<ref name=PhD />

Mulder subsequently spent time in Madagascar studying male plumage dichromatism in the Madagascar paradise flycatcher.<ref name=website>Raoul Mulder [https://raoulmulder.org/people/ Official website: People] Retrieved 9 April 2016.</ref><ref name=NatGeo>John L. Eliot (2005) [https://web.archive.org/web/20080129095215/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0504/research.html "Birds of a Different Color: Madagascar's Paradise Flycatchers"] ''National Geographic'', April 2005. Retrieved 9 April 2016.</ref> He spent one year as a technical advisor to the World Wide Fund for Nature in southern Madagascar, then served as a World Learning academic director in both Botswana and Madagascar.<ref name=FindAnExpert /> He returned to Australian National University from 1996 to 1998 as an ARC postdoctoral fellow.<ref name=FindAnExpert />

Mulder joined the Department of Zoology at the University of Melbourne in 1999 as a lecturer.<ref name=FindAnExpert /> Much of his research since has focused on the evolutionary and behavioural ecology of black swans and superb fairy-wrens.<ref name=Research>Raoul Mulder [https://raoulmulder.org/people/ Official website: Research] Retrieved 9 April 2016.</ref> His lab maintains wild study populations of black swans at Albert Park Lake in Melbourne, and superb fairy-wrens at Serendip Sanctuary near Lara, Victoria.<ref name=Research /><ref name=Conversation>Raoul Mulder (2011) [https://theconversation.com/citizen-scientists-the-black-swan-needs-you-795 "Citizen scientists, the black swan needs you"] ''The Conversation'', April 2011. Retrieved 9 April 2016.</ref><ref name=OffTrack>[http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/offtrack/personality2c-and-the-superb-fairy-wren-28malurus-cyaneus29/4621090 "Personality, and the Superb Fairy-wren"] ''Off Track'', Radio National. 13 April 2013. Retrieved 9 April 2016.</ref> In 2015, Mulder served as head of the newly formed School of BioSciences at the University of Melbourne.<ref name=Unimelb>[https://web.archive.org/web/20150412053737/http://biosciences.unimelb.edu.au/people/academic-staff School of BioSciences Academic Staff Directory] Archived by Wayback Machine on 12 April 2015. Retrieved 9 April 2016.</ref>

Using DNA fingerprinting, Mulder's PhD research revealed widespread extra-pair paternity in the superb fairy-wren: up to 76% of offspring were sired by males outside their social group. This is among the highest cuckoldry rates of any bird.<ref name=PhD /><ref name=1994Study>Raoul A. Mulder, Peter O. Dunn, Andrew Cockburn, Katherine A. Lazenby-Cohen, Michael J. Howell (1994) [http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/255/1344/223.short "Helpers Liberate Female Fairy-Wrens from Constraints on Extra-Pair Mate Choice."] ''Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B'', '''255''': 223-229. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.1994.0032. Published 22 March 1994.</ref> In black swans, his research found that one in six offspring are the result of breeding outside the social pair.<ref>K. Kraaijeveld, P. J. Carew, T. Billing, Greg J. Adcock, and Raoul A. Mulder (2004) [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2004.02172.x/full "Extra-pair paternity does not result in differential sexual selection in the mutually ornamented black swan (''Cygnus atratus'')] ''Molecular Ecology'', '''13'''(6): pp 1625–1633 (June 2004). DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2004.02172.x</ref><ref name=Voice>[http://voice.unimelb.edu.au/volume-7/number-6/secret-lives-black-swans "The secret lives of black swans"] ''The Voice'', '''7'''(6): June 5-July 10, 2011. Retrieved 9 April 2016.</ref><ref name=RN>Lynn Bell (2006) [http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2006/s1657760.htm "The secret sex life of swans"] ''PM'', Radio National. 7 June 2006. Retrieved 9 April 2016.</ref>

<gallery> File:Black Swans at Albert Park Lake, 2014.jpg|Black swans at Albert Park Lake wearing identifying neck collars as part of Mulder lab research File:Fairy-wren research at Serendip Sanctuary.JPG|A student measures a superb fairy-wren at Serendip Sanctuary as part of Mulder lab research </gallery>

==References== {{reflist|2}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mulder, Raoul}} Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Australian biologists Category:Australian zoologists Category:Australian ornithologists Category:Academic staff of the University of Melbourne Category:Australian National University alumni