Dr Çağlar Akçay

Dr Çağlar Akçay joined the School of Life Sciences in January 2022 as a Senior Lecturer in Behavioural Ecology.

His research interests are in the evolution and development of animal communication and how animals use social cognition to navigate social interactions. He primarily works with songbirds as model systems, carrying out field studies with free-living birds in a variety of habitats.

English
Turkish
German

• Animal communication
• Social cognition
• Anthropogenic impacts on animal behaviour

Dr Akcay welcomes enquiries from prospective research studies in the areas of his research interests.

• BSc (Hons) Animal Behaviour
• BSc (Hons) Zoology
• BSc (Hons) Ecology and Conservation
• MSc Animal Behaviour Applications for Conservation

• Animal Physiology and Behaviour (level 4)
• Biological Bases of Behaviour (level 5)
• Animal Communication (level 6)

• PhD, 2011, Animal Behavior, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
• MA, 2006, Cognition and Perception, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
• BS, 2004, Biology and Psychology (double major), Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

• Animal Behavior Society
• Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Society of Turkey
• Editor, Animal Behaviour (2023-2026)

• Turkish Science Academy - Early Career Fellowship, 2019-2021
• NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award, 2010-2011
• University of Washington Royalty Research Fund (2009 and 2014)

Yelimlieş, A., Önsal, Ç., & Akçay, Ç. (2026). Flexibility of territorial aggression in urban and rural Chaffinches. Ecology and Evolution, 16(2), e73145.

Yelimlieş, A., Morales, K. A., Akçay, Ç., & Kleindorfer, S. (2026). Solo songs, duets and territory defence across seasons in female Galápagos yellow warblers, Setophaga petechia aureola. Animal Behaviour, 123483.

Çabuk-Çolak, D., Eskenazi, T., & Akçay, Ç. (2026). Survival processing leads to social information hoarding. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 79(1), 214-225.

Katsis, A. C., Common, L. K., Akçay, Ç., & Kleindorfer, S. (2025). Good guardian, bad parent: tradeoffs between territory defense and parental care in Darwin's finches. Behavioral Ecology, 36(5), araf109.

Kershenbaum, A., Akçay, Ç., Babu‐Saheer, L., Barnhill, A., Best, P., Cauzinille, J., ... & Dunn, J. C. (2025). Automatic detection for bioacoustic research: a practical guide from and for biologists and computer scientists. Biological Reviews, 100(2), 620-646.

Hohl, L., Yelimlieş, A., Akçay, Ç., & Kleindorfer, S. (2025). Galápagos yellow warblers differ in behavioural plasticity in response to traffic noise depending on proximity to road. Animal Behaviour, 222, 123119.

García-Loor, J., Gallego-Abenza, M., Katsis, A. C., Puehringer-Sturmayr, V., Colombelli-Négrel, D., Akçay, Ç., & Kleindorfer, S. (2025). Aggressive behavior as a predictor of home range size: findings from both range-restricted and widespread Darwin’s finch species. Journal of Ornithology, 166(1), 247-261.

Kaluppa, M., García-Loor, J., Yelimlieş, A., Akçay, Ç., & Kleindorfer, S. (2025). Cultural and morphological divergence of Darwin’s cactus finches (Geospiza scandens) across Galápagos Islands. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 146(2), blaf098.

Arslan, B., Göksun, T., & Akçay, Ç. (2025). Does source reliability moderate the survival processing effect? The role of linguistic markers as reliability cues. Memory & Cognition, 53(2), 666-681.

Akçay, Ç., Colombelli-Négrel, D., & Kleindorfer, S. (2024). Buzzes are used as signals of aggressive intent in Darwin’s finches. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 142(4), 468-480.

Huge, A. C., Adreani, N. M., Colombelli-Négrel, D., Akçay, Ç., Common, L. K., & Kleindorfer, S. (2024). Age effects in Darwin’s finches: older males build more concealed nests in areas with more heterospecific singing neighbors. Journal of Ornithology, 165(1), 179-191.

Colombelli-Négrel, D., Akçay, Ç., & Kleindorfer, S. (2023). Darwin’s finches in human-altered environments sing common song types and are more aggressive. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11, 1034941.

Önsal, Ç., Yelimlieş, A., & Akçay, Ç. (2022). Aggression and multi-modal signaling in noise in a common urban songbird. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 76(7), 102.

Ertör-Akyazi, P., & Akçay, Ç. (2021). Moral intuitions predict pro-social behaviour in a climate commons game. Ecological Economics, 181, 106918.

Beecher, M. D., & Akçay, Ç. (2021). Social factors in bird-song development: Learning to sing with friends and rivals. Learning & Behavior, 49(1), 137-149.

Smith, M. G., Akçay, Ç., Shizuka, D., Stern, C. A., & Dickinson, J. L. (2020). Extraterritorial visits in a cooperatively breeding songbird are consistent with multiple functions. Animal Behaviour, 170, 119-132.

Akçay, Ç., & Beecher, M. D. (2020). Song sparrows do not discriminate between their own song and stranger song. Behavioural processes, 178, 104184.

Dr Akcay’s research has featured in a number of national and international media outlets including The Guardian, BBC News, and CBC (Canada). He’s also given interviews to BBC World Service, and several local stations of BBC Radio in the UK, and ITV Anglia.