Ornithological research, conservation and education in the savanna
Welcome to the Social Savanna Project, a collaborative ornithological study involving researchers based in Eswatini, the Netherlands and South Africa. The aims of the project are to conduct innovative research on behaviour, physiology and reproduction across multiple savanna bird species and to transmit ideas, knowledge and skills between academics and students at different universities.
Our research focus
Most of our collective knowledge of the ecological and evolutionary processes that underpin the dynamics of avian communities still comes from research performed in the Northern Hemisphere. Sub-Saharan Africa hosts an astonishing wealth of avian biodiversity, much of which is vastly understudied. The Social Savanna Project was established to help bridge this knowledge gap by way of multiple sub-projects on various different components of savanna avian ecology, from cooperative breeding to ecological immunology, predator-prey interactions to burning regimes.
Click on Our research to read about current research projects and themes.
Explore our project
The backbone of our project is field data, collected from within an avian community in the lowveld acacia savanna of Eswatini. Below you can explore our broad research themes and the current projects we are working on, meet the people involved, see where we work and get in touch with us about potential options for collaboration.
Research areas
Read more about the scientific questions guiding our work and the methods and techniques we use.
Our team
Meet the project principal investigators, collaborators and current students.
Field site
Get a feel for the infrastructure and daily life at our field site in Mbuluzi Game Reserve, Eswatini.
Project snapshots
Explore our photo gallery to get a feel for how it is to conduct fieldwork in the bush.
