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. He completed his Honours and PhD at the Australian National University under ornithologist
Andrew Cockburn, submitting his thesis in 1992. 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. 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. In 2015, Mulder served as head of the newly formed School of BioSciences at the
University of Melbourne. 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. In
black swans, his research found that one in six offspring are the result of breeding outside the social pair. 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 ==References==