Animal Behaviour
News
Congratulation Hugo!
09.12.2024: Another successful defence of a dissertation! Congratulations on your achievement, Hugo!
Congratualtions Stephen!
Stephen Salazar successfully defended his international doctoral thesis on 26.11.2024. As this defence took place in Groningen, everyone is wearing great gowns.
Congratulations Stephen, well done!
New Paper published
Hugo and his colleagues compared and contrasted the gut microbiota of three sympatric plover species: the widespread Kittlitz’s and white-fronted plovers (Anarhynchus pecuarius and A. marginatus) and the endemic and vulnerable Madagascar plover (A. thoracicus). This system provided a unique opportunity to investigate species differences without the confounding effects of habitat and dietary variation. Their results show that patterns of microbial diversity varied across species, while lack of compositional differences suggests that habitat and diet likely exert a strong influence on the gut microbiota of plovers. They also found that the endemic A. thoracicus shows reduced microbial and genetic diversity which may hinder its ability to adapt to environmental changes, highlighting the need for increased conservation efforts for this vulnerable species.
Find out more in the paper "The gut microbiota of three avian species living in sympatry"
PhD position available
A 4-year PhD position (stipend) is available in our raptor team from 01.02.2025.
Are you interested in red kites and other birds of prey and enjoy working in the field? Then apply!
Application deadline is 30.11.2024
Further details can be found in the job advertisement: PhD_Rotmilan_2024.pdf
Open position: Scientific Assistant Position (E13)
We are looking for a new team member!
A full-time scientific assistant position (salary scale E13) is available from March 1st 2025 or soon thereafter. The position is available for six (3+3) years.
Application deadline is November 15th 2024
For more details see the job advertisement:
ScientificAssistant_Bielefeld2024.pdf
New paper published
Kai, a member of our raptor team, has collaborated with statisticians from Salzburg to develop a new method for measuring the niche overlap of several species simultaneously. The breeding site and habitat data of the common buzzard, red kite and eagle owl were used as a data example.
Curious? Read the paper A Novel Method for Nonparametric Statistical Inference for Niche Overlap in Multiple Species
PhD thesis handed in!
Many congratulations to Hugo for submitting his thesis about: Microbioms in the wild: insights from avian species
Congratulations!
Svenja, a PhD student in the Galapagos Sea Lion Project, recently presented some of her results at the International Conference for Young Marine Researchers (ICYMARE) in Bremen. For this she received one of the prices for "Best Talk".
Now Svenja and her colleagues are heading back to the Galapagos for the annual field season to collect more interesting data on the Galapagos sea lions (Zalophus wollebaeki). Good luck in the field!
New paper published
Hugo and colleagues investigated the interactions between gut microbiota, immune function, and stress during early development in common buzzard nestlings (Buteo buteo). While they found no feedback between gut microbial diversity and immune or stress parameters, they identified strong relationships: immunity was negatively correlated with stress levels; stress levels were negatively associated with body condition; and microbial diversity was positively linked to improved nestling body condition.
If you want to know more, check out their paper The gut microbiota-immune-brain axis in a wild vertebrate: dynamic interactions and health impacts
New paper
In their study, Sabine and colleges investigated long-term consequences of the early family environment on individual differences in lifetime fitness in female cavies (Cavia aperea).
If you want to know more about how initial size differences among siblings translate to size differences in adulthood and how different litter characteristics affect maturation and reproductive output of female wild cavies, check out the paper Long-term effects of litter characteristics on reproduction in female cavies
Welcome Gaia!
Gaia recently graduated in MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Environmental Quality. She is doing an Erasmus for traineeship after-graduation to study prevalence and abundance of Haemosporidian parasites in migratory birds, which will be sampled at a ringing camp in Bulgaria. Welcome to the VHF and buzzard team!
Welcome Simone!
Simone joined the Raptor Group to study the behaviour of birds of prey for his MSc thesis in Evolutionary Biology. He is focusing in particular on the aggression of buzzards and nest defence behaviour towards predators. To look into these aspects, he is carrying out some field experiments. Welcome to the VHF and buzzard team!
Paper published
Does the degree of sexual competition influence the gene expression profiles of the testes and two brain areas in male zebra finches? Navina and her colleagues addressed this question and present their findings in their paper: Transcriptomic changes in the posterior pallium of male zebra finches associated with social niche conformance
Review published
In behaviour, ecology and evolution, we are very interested in how phenotypes interact with their environment. The review by members of our NC3 initiative focuses on the importance of social competition.
Learn more about how important it is to understand when and how social competition causes non-random distribution of phenotypes, and genotypes, across heterogeneous environments: Social competition as a driver of phenotype–environment correlations: implications for ecology and evolution
PhD thesis handed in!
Many congratulations to Stephen for submitting his thesis about: Individual risk and reward in the wild - A study on blue tits
A deep look inside the buzzards
Hugo and colleagues have looked at the complex interplay between microbial communities, host factors, and environmental variables. Find out more in their recently published paper "Early-life factors shaping the gut microbiota of Common buzzard nestlings"
Start of the field season
The Raptor Research Team has ringed the first Ravens of 2024. The field season is in full play!
PhD position: Social organisation and vocal communication in wild zebra finches
A PhD position is available in a collaborative project between Behavioural Ecology group at Wageningen University (Netherlands), Macquarie University in Sydney (Australia) and Bielefeld University (Germany).
The aim of this project is to determine the nature of multi-level communities and the role of vocal signalling in their dynamics, using wild zebra finches in the Australian arid zone as a model.
Interested? Here is the full advert:PhD-position_ZF.pdf
Website to apply: Wageningen University
Welcome to the new Summer semester!
The new summer semester has started amidst the many construction sites at the university.
We wish everyone a good start and a successful and stimulating semester!
New paper published in Ibis
How susceptible are shorebird species to haemosporidian parasite infection? Nayden and his colleagues investigated this in their paper Haemosporidian infections are more common in breeding shorebirds than in migrating shorebirds.
New independent research group
Congratulation Joe to his independent working group Evolutionary Population Genetics
Annual meeting of the Ethological Society
Sabine gave a talk during the annual meeting of the Ethological Society at the University of Münster.
A visit to Vilnius
Two members of the raptor research team have recently been welcomed at the Parasitology Lab of the Nature Research Center in Lithuania. The research group is based in Vilnius and renowned for its work on avian blood parasites. In the course of two exciting weeks the team from Bielefeld was trained in several parasitological methods. This will help the raptor researchers tackle some outstanding questions regarding host-parasite interactions in their study population.
Archive
- News 2023
Merry Christmas
© Sabine Kraus We wish you all a peaceful and happy Christmas and wonderful moments with your loved ones.
Start the new year safe and sound.
Start of the special module
© S. Kraus 202543 Spezialmodul Mechanismen des Verhaltens Over the next few weeks, the participants of the special module will find out what the objects in the photo have to do with woodlice, zebra finches and buzzards and what they reveal about the mechanisms of behaviour.
Fieldwork in the Galapagos
© S. Stöhr Our PhD-Students Alex and Svenja from the Sea Lion Project are currently conducting their annual fieldwork in the Galapagos during the reproductive period of the sea lions. The daily work includes tracking births, behavioral observations of moms and their pups, collecting samples and deploying dive computers to study foraging behaviour at sea. For a new project this year for the first time they are equipping all the new pups as well as immatures with proximity loggers for a social networking study. Good luck in the field
Joint Graduate Meeting of the Ethological Society and the Behavioural Biology Section of the DZG in Bielefeld
© Sabine Kraus A total of 37 participants joined this Graduate Meeting to chat, exchange ideas and engage in discussions. We had a great time and are already looking forward to next year's meeting in Dummerstorf.
Happy Birthday VHF!
The VHF has turned 50!
Many former and current members of the VHF came together to celebrate.
The programme of the celebration started with a report by Fritz Trillmich on the history of the VHF. We then had the pleasure of hearing Norbert Sachser give the legendary Immelmann Lecture, followed by Oliver Krüger's report on the future of the VHF. Finally, of course, there was plenty of time for socialising and celebrating.New paper in BMC Zoology
If you are interested in learning more about how female guinea pigs respond to different rearing temperatures in terms of growth, storage and development, read the article by Fritz and Anja: Shifts in energy allocation and reproduction in response to temperature in a small precocial mammal
VHF will turn 50 soon!
© Ulrich Pörschmann November 1973: Topping-out ceremony for the VHF building - 50 years ago now. A reason to celebrate and to get all alumni together to chat about the last decades in this special building.
Behaviour conference 2023
© Marc Gilles A conference week full of inspiring talks, posters, discussions and workshops is coming to an end.
Start of the Behaviour 2023!
© @BielefeldUniversity It's finally happening! Behaviour 2023 is kicking off and we are looking forward to great talks, posters and discussions.
Check out the video that was shot for the kick-off of this conference.
Registration for Graduate Meeting open
pixabay The Joint Graduate Meeting of the Ethological Society and the Behavioral Biology Section of the DZG will be hosted in Bielefeld this year.
Take the opportunity to exchange with peers and build a network. For registration visit our website.
Successful field season
© Tim Rapp 2023 was a quite outstanding year for the raptor research team at the Department of Animal Behaviour. In almost 30 years of monitoring, the number of breeding attempts has never been higher, while the number of sampled buzzard nestlings (476) matched the previous record. The team also gathered extensive footage through 15 nest cameras and equipped 30 birds with GPS-GSM transmitters!
New paper published
© Nayden Charakov Check out new and interesting details of the major histocompatibility complex in buzzards by reading our buzzard team's paper: High functional allelic diversity and copy number in both MHC classes in the common buzzard
Flying into the new aviaries
© Bielefeld University, Foto: Sarah Jonek Finally, the new aviaries are filled with singing and chirping - our zebra finches moved into their new aviaries.
Stay up to date with the current status of the construction plans in the blog
Paper published in nature
© Bielefeld University Together with an interdisciplinary team, Joseph Hoffman has looked at germline mutation rates in different vertebrate species to gain broader insights into the evolution of mutations and thus the genomes in vertebrates.
In an interview, Joe briefly reports what the study was about.
The entire study: Evolution of the germline mutation rate across vertebrates
Individualisation Fellowships for Postdocs
The interdisciplinary collaborative project „Individualisation in Changing Environments“ (InChangE) currently offers two Postdoc Fellowships at Bielefeld University. The disciplines represented in InChangE are biology, philosophy, sociology, economics, psychology, geoinformatics, psychiatry and health sciences.
The fellowships will provide the successful candidates the opportunity to further develop their independent research in the field of individualisation science and to prepare their application for an individual research grant.
Application deadline: 14 June 2023
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact: inchange_koordination@uni-bielefeld.de
Congratulations on the PhD!
© Marc Gilles On April 20, Tony Rinaud successfully defended his doctoral thesis on blood parasites in the common buzzard. Many congratulations Tony!
For more information about Tony's research, check out his publications.
Great survival
© Svenja Stöhr Svenja and her colleagues from the Sea Lion Project just returned from their 1-month field season in the Galapagos Islands. They were excited to see that all the pups born during the previous field season had survived and were now big enough to receive individual tags which will make it possible to track the animals throughout their entire life. Now it is time to head back to the lab to analyse the collected samples and data.
Student helpers wanted
For the project on filming, sampling and tagging birds of prey (buzzards, red kites, goshawks, eagle owls), we are looking for motivated student assistants from mid-March who enjoy spending time in nature and have a driving licence.
- Up to 19 h/week, initially for 4 months.
- Combination with project/BSc/MSc work possible
Tasks:
- Nest mapping
- Checks of nest cameras
- Assistance with bird ringing
If you are interested, please contact:
Dr Nayden Chakarov
Office: VHF-373
E-mail: nayden.chakarov@uni-bielefeld.de
Phone: 0521 106 2620Registration and Abstract Submission Open!
© Marc Gilles
The abstract submission and congress registration for Behaviour 2023 is open!Abstract submission closes April 30th.
You can benefit from these Early-Bird fees until April 30th! From May 1st, congress registration fees will increase.
If you would like to host a workshop during the congress, you can now submit your workshop proposal!
Workshop topics can be anything behaviour-related; from working with specific behaviour-scoring software to improving reproducible coding.Mehrere studentische Hilfskräfte gesucht/ Several student assistants needed
© Marc Gilles Wir suchen helfende Hände für die Logistik, Planung und bei der technischen Umsetzung unserer großen internationalen Behaviour Tagung. Vertragsbeginn: idealerweise 1.5.2023
Bei Interesse bitte melden bei:
Nadine Schubert
nadine.schubert@uni-bielefeld.de
0521 106 2840Mehr Informationen zur Tagung gibt es auf der Tagungswebsite.
Aushange-Hiwi-Jobs-Behaviour-2023.pdf
We are looking for helping hands for the logistics, planning and technical implementation of our large international Behaviour Conference. Start of contract: ideally 1.5.2023
If you are interested, please contact:
Nadine Schubert
nadine.schubert@uni-bielefeld.de
0521 106 2840More information about the conference is available on the conference website.
PhD position in Raptor / Parasite Ecology
Buzzard chick © Nayden Charakov Interested in studying birds of prey? Become part of a long-term project on birds of prey with a unique long-term dataset.
It is your chance for a multi-faceted PhD position that combines field and lab work and provides the opportunity to realise your own scientific projects.Submission deadline is 01.03.2023
For more information, please check: Raptors-PhD-position-Bielefeld_0223.pdf
Welcome Bernice!
Bernice Sepers joined the Hoffman Lab. She received the Bielefeld Young Researchers’ Fund to develop a project on fur seal epigenetics.
We wish you many successes and good luck with your project, Bernice!
Open position - Scientific Coordinator NC3 & MGSE
The Collaborative Research Center Transregio 212 (NC3) and the Institute of Evolution and Biodiversity in the Faculty of Biology at the University of Münster (WWU) are seeking to fill the position of a Scientific Coordinator.
The deadline for applications is 11.02.2023.
For more information check out the following websites:
New paper in Animal Behaviour!
blue tit © Stephen Salazar Stephen Salazar along with Kasper Hlebowicz, Jan Komdeur and Peter Korsten tested a commonly held expectation about behavioural flexibility in the wild. Read in their paper what they found out in blue tits: Repeatable parental risk taking across manipulated levels of predation threat: no individual variation in plasticity
Biological Reviews paper out!
wood grouse © Oliver Krüger Do you want to learn more about the historical emergence of the sex role concept, recent criticisms & rebuttals as well as theoretical links to adult sex ratio and causes & consequences of biased adult sex ratio? Then check out this review written by Oliver and colleagues: Sex roles and sex ratios in animals
- News 2022
Merry Christmas
© Sabine Kraus We wish you all a peaceful and happy Christmas and wonderful moments with your loved ones.
Start the new year safe and sound.
Congratulations Navina on your paper!
zebra finches © Navina Lilie Curious about how male zebra finches adjust their behaviour to the risk of sperm competition? Read about it in Navina's paper: Male social niche conformance? Effects of manipulated opportunity for extra-pair mating on behavior and hormones of male zebra finches
Section speaker
Sabine Kraus, together with Ahana Fernandez and Christian Nawroth, is now new section speaker for behavioural biology in the DZG (German Zoological Society).
If you want to know more about the DZG, have a look at their website.
Walter Benjamin fellowship
© Rebecca Nagel Rebecca Nagel has been awarded a Walter Benjamin fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for a period of 2 years. Come January 2022, she will be carrying out research at the University of St. Andrews in the UK in collaboration with Dr. Michael Morrissey. She plans to pair newly collected micro-meteorological data with data from the long-term research project of wild Soay sheep to test the hypothesis that incorporating fine-scale, individual-based environmental conditions into multivariate trait-fitness regression models will produce more robust predictions of selection.
Congratulations, Rebecca, and all the best!Far from civilisation
sea lion © Svenja Stöhr Our Galapagos team has been in the field since the beginning of October and is now halfway through. They stay for the peak of the breeding season until mid-December. The 4-member field team, which also includes Alexandra Childs and Svenja Stöhr, camps on an uninhabited, remote island with a sea lion colony.
Their daily work consists of tracking births, collecting genetic, hormonal and stable isotope samples, deploying dive computers to study feeding behaviour, studying juvenile behaviour through video observations, conducting personality tests such as approach tests and tests with new objects,...
We wish you continued success in your field season!New paper in Ethology!
Wiley Online Library, CC BY-NC 4.0 Anja and Fritz investigated behavioural developmental phenotypic plasticity of juvenile cavies in response to photoperiod. Cavies are highly precocial and reproduce multiple times within a year. This makes them an ideal study species to determine whether such adjustments occur and are adaptive with respect to pace-of-life syndrome (POL).
Curious what they found out? Check out their paper Photoperiod influences the development and the expression of personality traits and social behaviour in wild cavies (Cavia aperea)
Individualisation Fellowships for Postdocs
© Bielefeld University The interdisciplinary collaborative project „Individualisation in Changing Environments“ (InChangE) is currently offering a total of 5 Postdoc Fellowships (full-term, salary level TV-L E14) for 18 months at the Universities of Bielefeld and Münster. The disciplines represented in InChangE are biology, philosophy, sociology, economics, psychology, geoinformatics, psychiatry and health sciences.
The fellowships will provide the successful candidates the opportunity to further develop their independent research in the field of individualisation science and to prepare their application for an individual research grant.
Application deadline: 30 November 2022
More details: http://fellowships.jice.info
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact: inchange_koordination@uni-bielefeld.de
PhD track position available!
© Nayden Charakov Become part of a long-term project on birds of prey with a unique long-term dataset.
In addition to seasonal field work, you have the opportunity to realise your own scientific projects using the cutting-edge technology.
Interested? You can find more information on our website and in the advertisement below.Welcome to the new winter semester
pixabay The new semester has started again as an on-campus semester. We wish everyone a good start and a successful and stimulating semester!
Master thesis available
© Sabine Kraus For a project to study whether birds have an instinctive fear of snakes, we are looking for a highly motivated and reliable Master student who enjoys working with zebra finches.
A FELASA certificate is an advantage.
The questions to be explored in this thesis are:
- Do zebra finches that have never seen a snake before recognize it as potential threat?
- Do zebra finches have a heritable visual template that allow them to recognize objects?
The Department of Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Animal Behaviour are collaborating in this project. If you are interested and want to be part of this collaboration, please contact
Dr. David Kikuchi
david.kikuchi@uni-bielefeld.de
Dr. Sabine Kraus
Congratulations on the PhD!
Jonas during field work on Camaño © Jonas Schwarz Very well done! Congratulations to Jonas Schwarz for passing his doctoral thesis on How to behave in a changing world - Development and consequences of stable behavioural differences in the Galápagos sea lion.
If you want to know more about Jonas' research, check out his publications.
Preprint published on parasite costs in early life of hosts
Buzzard chick © Tony Rinaud Tony´s current PhD project aims to investigate avian malaria infection consequences in juveniles of a widely spread raptor, the common buzzard (Buteo buteo). He is interested in evaluating physiological and transcriptional changes due to various intensities of parasitic infections and how hosts and parasites adjust their coping strategies during this arms-race. His new preprint "Only rare, acute blood parasite infections induce physiological costs in avian offspring" is available here: https://ecoevorxiv.org/4tcqu/
More work on host and parasite transcription in this raptor-malaria interaction soon to come!
Three months in Uganda
Banded Mongoose © Nadine Schubert Corona has put many obstacles in her way, but finally, Nadine was able to fly to Uganda to carry out her long-planned behavioural experiments with the banded mongoose. Good luck and have a great time in Mweya in the Queen Elizabeth National Park!
If you want to learn more about the Banded Mongoose Research Project, visit this website.
20. Nachtansichten - 20th Night Views
Meet the Scientists © Antje Herde It's the night of museums, galleries and churches.
On 30 April from 6 pm to 1 am, many different cultural venues in Bielefeld will open their doors. The NC3 exhibition "Tierisch individuell" will also be part of it!18.00 – 23.00 Meet the Scientists
You can buy tickets in advance.
Links: Namu Program Bielefeld Marketing
Congratulations Lisa on your paper!
Examples of the plumage score © Lisa Kalnins Lisa developed a novel plumage score – a simple, reliable, and non-invasive way to estimate an important indicator of captive Zebra Finches' well-being. If you want to try it out yourself, take a look at Plumage and Fat Condition Scores as Well-Being Assessment Indicators in a Small Passerine Bird
Student project available!
© Rebecca Nagel The immune system protects individuals against pathogens and parasites, but investing into immunity is costly! Energy expenditure on immunity can vary depending on individual characteristics and environmental conditions, such as age and population density. We want to figure out what factors are most important for Antarctic fur seals. Do do this, we have blood smears from seal pups and mothers, and we want to count the number and type of white blood cells. This will also tell us something about the types of infections and diseases Antarctic fur seals are exposed to.
If you are interested in helping with this project (both bachelor and master students are welcome) or would like to find out more, please get in touch with Rebecca Nagel (rebecca.nagel@uni-bielefeld.de) or Joe Hoffman (joseph.hoffman@uni-bielefeld.de). We look forward to hearing from you!
New paper published!
© Universität Bielefeld Get detailed insights into the individualization of endocrine phenotypes and their genetic and environmental drivers in the Antarctic fur seal.
Wie klingen eigentlich die Polarmeere?
© Ramona Mattmüller Our PhD student Ramona Mattmüller is going to talk about Polar Ocean Soundscapes at the Youtube Channel "Wissenschaft fürs Wohnzimmer".
Wie klingen eigentlich die Polarmeere?
31.03.2022; 08:15 pm
The talk will be in German.
New paper published!
© Universität Bielefeld Do you want to know more about individual foraging strategies in Galápagos sea lions? Take a look at what Jonas and his Co-authors found out here.
New paper published!
© Universität Bielefeld "Demographic Reconstruction of Antarctic Fur Seals Supports the Krill Surplus Hypothesis" read more here
Visit the NC3 exhibition
© Universität Bielefeld/Maximilian Weihs Come and visit the NC3 exhibition "Tierisch individuell" at the namu.
Discover the research on animals that choose, conform and construct their individual niches!
The opening of the exhibition will take place on 13.03.2022 from 10-17h. Entrance is free!
The exhibition will be on view at the namu from 13 March to 11 September 2022.
PhD position available in the Hoffman Lab!
© Joe Hoffman 3 year PhD position
Are you interested in evolutionary genomics and want to combine fieldwork with lab-based bioinformatic analysis of next generation sequencing data? Well then, this opportunity to work on porcini mushrooms might be just the perfect fit.
Deadline: 1st March 2022For more information about the lab and the positions, visit the website.
PostDoc position available in the Hoffman Lab!
© Bielefeld University 4 year PostDoc position
You are interested in population genetics and have experience with RAD sequencing and similar approaches? Take the opportunity to work on the genomics and epigenetics of Antarctic fur seals.
Deadline: 25th February 2022For more information about the lab and the positions, visit the website.
