Ben C. Sheldon

37.1k total citations · 6 hit papers
294 papers, 26.5k citations indexed

About

Ben C. Sheldon is a scholar working on Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Ecology and Genetics. According to data from OpenAlex, Ben C. Sheldon has authored 294 papers receiving a total of 26.5k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 217 papers in Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, 166 papers in Ecology and 66 papers in Genetics. Recurrent topics in Ben C. Sheldon's work include Animal Behavior and Reproduction (204 papers), Avian ecology and behavior (118 papers) and Plant and animal studies (88 papers). Ben C. Sheldon is often cited by papers focused on Animal Behavior and Reproduction (204 papers), Avian ecology and behavior (118 papers) and Plant and animal studies (88 papers). Ben C. Sheldon collaborates with scholars based in United Kingdom, Sweden and United States. Ben C. Sheldon's co-authors include Simon Verhulst, Juha Merilä, Loeske E. B. Kruuk, Hans Ellegren, Lars Gustafsson, Stuart A. West, Damien R. Farine, R. H. McCleery, Tim Clutton‐Brock and Lucy M. Aplin and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In The Last Decade

Ben C. Sheldon

289 papers receiving 25.5k citations

Hit Papers

Ecological immunology: costly parasite defences and trade... 1996 2026 2006 2016 1996 2008 2010 2000 2014 500 1000 1.5k 2.0k
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. Ecological immunology: costly parasite defences and trade-offs in evolutionary ecology
    1996 2.0k citations Ben C. Sheldon et al. profile →
  2. Adaptive Phenotypic Plasticity in Response to Climate Change in a Wild Bird Population
    2008 981 citations Anne Charmantier, R. H. McCleery et al. Science profile →
  3. Individuals and populations: the role of long-term, individual-based studies of animals in ecology and evolutionary biology
    2010 703 citations Ben C. Sheldon et al. profile →
  4. Differential allocation: tests, mechanisms and implications
    2000 592 citations Ben C. Sheldon profile →
  5. Experimentally induced innovations lead to persistent culture via conformity in wild birds
    2014 460 citations Lucy M. Aplin, Damien R. Farine et al. profile →
  6. Precipitation drives global variation in natural selection
    2017 266 citations Tim Coulson, Loeske E. B. Kruuk et al. Science profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name h Career Trend Papers Cites
Ben C. Sheldon United Kingdom 89 16.6k 12.9k 6.8k 3.1k 2.5k 294 26.5k
Martin Wikelski Germany 85 11.5k 0.7× 16.0k 1.2× 2.8k 0.4× 1.6k 0.5× 4.4k 1.7× 395 25.9k
Terry Burke United Kingdom 78 11.1k 0.7× 9.8k 0.8× 8.6k 1.3× 814 0.3× 2.0k 0.8× 394 20.9k
Paul Harvey United Kingdom 87 14.3k 0.9× 13.7k 1.1× 7.7k 1.1× 925 0.3× 6.7k 2.6× 338 33.3k
Anders Pape Møller France 114 31.3k 1.9× 28.6k 2.2× 7.2k 1.1× 7.9k 2.6× 6.2k 2.4× 863 52.4k
Ian P. F. Owens United Kingdom 61 7.9k 0.5× 7.6k 0.6× 2.9k 0.4× 923 0.3× 3.6k 1.4× 100 14.2k
Niels J. Dingemanse Germany 57 13.3k 0.8× 6.7k 0.5× 3.1k 0.5× 507 0.2× 1.8k 0.7× 166 17.3k
Mark Pagel United Kingdom 66 10.5k 0.6× 7.0k 0.5× 5.5k 0.8× 405 0.1× 4.5k 1.8× 173 25.1k
John L. Gittleman United States 66 7.2k 0.4× 12.7k 1.0× 5.0k 0.7× 877 0.3× 5.7k 2.2× 121 28.2k
T. R. Birkhead United Kingdom 75 13.1k 0.8× 8.2k 0.6× 4.7k 0.7× 807 0.3× 1.7k 0.7× 293 17.4k
Alasdair I. Houston United Kingdom 78 10.1k 0.6× 7.9k 0.6× 3.8k 0.6× 457 0.1× 3.1k 1.2× 282 19.3k

Countries citing papers authored by Ben C. Sheldon

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Ben C. Sheldon's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Ben C. Sheldon with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Ben C. Sheldon more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Ben C. Sheldon

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Ben C. Sheldon. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Ben C. Sheldon. The network helps show where Ben C. Sheldon may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Ben C. Sheldon

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Ben C. Sheldon. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Ben C. Sheldon based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Ben C. Sheldon. Ben C. Sheldon is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
Salguero‐Gómez, Roberto, et al.. (2025). Genetic diversity and population structure of pedunculate oaks ( Quercus robur ) in Wytham Woods. Plants People Planet. 7(6). 1789–1802. 1 indexed citations
2.
Cole, Ella F., et al.. (2024). A densely sampled and richly annotated acoustic data set from a wild bird population. Animal Behaviour. 211. 111–122. 3 indexed citations
3.
Xu, Fei, Ella F. Cole, Ben C. Sheldon, et al.. (2024). Spatially heterogeneous shifts in vegetation phenology induced by climate change threaten the integrity of the avian migration network. Global Change Biology. 30(1). e17148–e17148. 7 indexed citations
4.
Beck, Kristina B., Ben C. Sheldon, & Josh A. Firth. (2023). Social learning mechanisms shape transmission pathways through replicate local social networks of wild birds. eLife. 12. 11 indexed citations
5.
Regan, Charlotte E. & Ben C. Sheldon. (2023). Phenotypic plasticity increases exposure to extreme climatic events that reduce individual fitness. Global Change Biology. 29(11). 2968–2980. 9 indexed citations
6.
Sheldon, Ben C., et al.. (2021). Neural ordinary differential equations for ecological and evolutionary time‐series analysis. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. 12(7). 1301–1315. 22 indexed citations
7.
Wild, Sonja, et al.. (2021). Complex foraging behaviours in wild birds emerge from social learning and recombination of components. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 377(1843). 20200307–20200307. 19 indexed citations
8.
Kim, Jun‐Mo, Anna W. Santure, John L. Quinn, et al.. (2018). A high‐density SNP chip for genotyping great tit (Parus major) populations and its application to studying the genetic architecture of exploration behaviour. Molecular Ecology Resources. 18(4). 877–891. 29 indexed citations
9.
Firth, Josh A., Ella F. Cole, Christos C. Ioannou, et al.. (2018). Personality shapes pair bonding in a wild bird social system. Nature Ecology & Evolution. 2(11). 1696–1699. 33 indexed citations
10.
Bosse, Mirte, Lewis G. Spurgin, Veronika N. Laine, et al.. (2017). Recent natural selection causes adaptive evolution of an avian polygenic trait. Science. 358(6361). 365–368. 137 indexed citations
11.
Voelkl, Bernhard, Josh A. Firth, & Ben C. Sheldon. (2016). The socio-ecology of fear: Nonlethal predator effects on the social composition of wild bird flocks. Bern Open Repository and Information System (University of Bern). 14 indexed citations
12.
Aplin, Lucy M., Damien R. Farine, Julie Morand‐Ferron, et al.. (2013). Individual personalities predict social behaviour in wild networks of great tits ( Parus major). Ecology Letters. 16(11). 1365–1372. 262 indexed citations
13.
Sheldon, Ben C., et al.. (2013). A comprehensive molecular phylogeny for the hornbills (Aves: Bucerotidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 67(2). 468–483. 36 indexed citations
14.
Lachish, Shelly, Becki Lawson, Andrew A. Cunningham, & Ben C. Sheldon. (2012). Epidemiology of the Emergent Disease Paridae pox in an Intensively Studied Wild Bird Population. PLoS ONE. 7(11). e38316–e38316. 25 indexed citations
15.
Chapman, Joanne R. & Ben C. Sheldon. (2011). Heterozygosity is unrelated to adult fitness measures in a large, noninbred population of great tits (Parus major). Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 24(8). 1715–1726. 15 indexed citations
16.
Wilkin, Teddy A. & Ben C. Sheldon. (2009). Sex Differences in the Persistence of Natal Environmental Effects on Life Histories. Current Biology. 19(23). 1998–2002. 89 indexed citations
17.
Charmantier, Anne, R. H. McCleery, L. R. Cole, et al.. (2008). Adaptive Phenotypic Plasticity in Response to Climate Change in a Wild Bird Population. Science. 320(5877). 800–803. 981 indexed citations breakdown →
18.
Charmantier, Anne, Christopher M. Perrins, R. H. McCleery, & Ben C. Sheldon. (2006). Quantitative genetics of age at reproduction in wild swans: Support for antagonistic pleiotropy models of senescence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103(17). 6587–6592. 132 indexed citations
19.
Sætre, Glenn‐Peter, Thomas Borge, Katarina Lindroos, et al.. (2003). Sex chromosome evolution and speciation in Ficedula flycatchers. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 270(1510). 53–59. 178 indexed citations
20.
Sheldon, Ben C.. (1998). Recent studies of avian sex ratios. Heredity. 80(4). 397–402. 429 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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