Animal Ecology

The Animal Ecology Group has a long standing tradition of long-term studies on wild birds, in combination with elegant laboratory and field experiments. Our research aims to link individual level behaviour and physiology, population dynamics and micro-evolutionary changes in response to environmental variation. We study the ecology of avian migration, dispersal, and reproduction in a variety of systems all over the world. We expect that this understanding will also help an underpinning of nature conservation efforts worldwide. 

Tracks & Signs

• A forth coming paper in Journal of Animal Ecology shows how the cost of reproduction in Great tits depends on the social environment. This paper gives a new perspective on how organisms must trade-off current and future reproductive success: it not just depends on the individual decision but also on the decisions of competitors. Read paper [PDF].
• Pied flycatchers can be successfully translocated to an alternative breeding area where they breed successfully under natural circumstances, as a paper in PLoS ONE  shows. This technique could be used in studies examining the importance of local adaptation, and the possibility of directional dispersal as adaptation to climate change. 
• A paper in Evolutionary Ecology showed that looking like a male may be beneficial for females in species with high levels of male harassment, possibly because males do not recognize such females as suitable mating partners. In a polymorphic damselfly, the colouration of male-like females was indistinguishable from males and these females were less preferred by males. Read paper [PDF].

• A recent publication in PloS ONE  shows that uniparental sanderlings Calidris alba breeding in high arctic Greenland compensate for their low nest attentiveness compared to biparental conspecifics by putting extra heat into their eggs.

• A forthcoming paper in Physiological and Biochemical Zoology reveals that immune function in adult male and female black guillemots (Cepphus grylle) is affected differently by the challenge of incubating one additional egg.  Paradoxically, changes in immune function from early to late incubation, which were also observed, were not affected by the experimental clutch enlargement. Read paper [PDF].
• A forthcoming paper in Journal of Animal Ecology reveals w ithin-individual associations between food availability and oxidative status in Seychelles warblers. Oxidative stress balance was sensitive to relatively short-term changes in territory quality, with potential consequences for the birds' fitness.
  Read paper [PDF].
• A paper in Current Biology showed that annual schedules of migrating birds have responded more flexibly to climate change, than previously assumed. Interestingly, spring departure is flexible, but arrival time at the breeding grounds is constrained by conditions en route. Read paper [PDF].
  See for popular content Science daily.
• Arne Hegemann & Rob Voesten describe in a forthcoming issue of Ardea  [PDF] the observation of a nestling cuckoo that got most likely ejected by its skylark host parents. An active rejection of a nestling cuckoo by host parents has never be published so far, which makes this observation so spectacular. If skylarks are more generally able to reject parasite nestling, this would shed a very new and fascinating light on the evolutionary arm-races between hosts and parasites in avian systems.