nieuwsbrief 2009: Kemphaan onderzoek [PDF]
newsletter 2009: Ruff research [PDF]
nieuwsbrief 2007: Grutto Onderzoek [PDF]
newsletter 2007: Black-tailed Godwits in Friesland [PDF]
nieuwsbrief 2004 Grutto Onderzoek Workumerwaard [DOC]
newsletter 2004 Black-tailed Godwits in Friesland [DOC]
nieuwsbrief 2004
Kemphanen Onderzoek in Zuidwest Fryslân
[PDF]
newsletter 2004
Ruff research in The Netherlands (Southwest Fryslân)
[DOC]
Waders come in two types: one is the high arctic breeder that migrates in a few long-distance flights to its overwintering sites that are almost exclusively in marine habitats. The other is the temperate and boreal breeder that migrates in shorter flights and mostly winters in fresh water habitats. The first type includes species like knot, sanderling, bar-tailed godwit and grey plover, while representatives of the other type are ruff, greenshanks, black-tailed godwit and golden plover. Why is there such a division with covarying traits as habitat choice in winter and summer and migration strategy? Our hypothesis is that species breeding in the high arctic have become habitat specialists with low investment in immune defence and therefore they have to rely on habitats that are relatively pathogen-free. In contrast, low latitude breeding species can afford to use the more pathogen-rich freshwater habitats. The high arctic breeding group must have been more vulnerable to environmental changes during their history, and therefore may have gone through severe population bottlenecks, impairing their genetic diversity and therefore the ability to fight diseases even more. This again could have made them even more reliant on pathogen-free environments, and this positive feedback loop could have created the dichotomy between life histories. This challenging hypothesis is one of the new main research themes within the Animal Ecology group. We aim to test this by comparing immune function, migration systems, population dynamics and their genetic structures in different species-pairs that have either of the two life histories. As species pairs we will start with bar-tailed and blacktailed godwit, ruff and knot, and golden and grey plover.
Researchers working on this theme:
Yvonne Verkuil (PhD)
Jos Hooijmeijer (research assistant)
Theunis Piersma (group leader)
