Dierecologie
The department’s research is aimed at understanding the causes and consequences of variation in life-history traits, including the underlying genomic mechanisms, as well as the variation in time and space, of population numbers and population composition.
We plaatsen verschillende processen, zoals veranderingen in genen, fysiologie, gedrag en populatie in een evolutionair kader. We zijn vooral benieuwd hoe dieren zich aanpassen aan veranderingen veroorzaakt door mensen. Denk aan klimaatverandering en verstedelijking.
De afdeling heeft twee hoofddoelen, die we uiteindelijk willen samenvoegen:
- Evolutionair onderzoek: we willen evolutie niet alleen begrijpen, maar ook voorspellen. Hierbij is het belangrijk om veranderingen in het DNA en epigenetische processen (aanpassingen zonder dat het DNA veranderd) te begrijpen. Om deze veranderingen te voorspellen onderzoeken we hoe klimaatverandering en menselijke activiteiten, zoals landgebruik, dit proces beïnvloeden. We baseren veel van ons onderzoek op langdurige veldstudies en ons onderzoek naar kleine zangvogels in onze volières.
- Ecologisch onderzoek: in ons ecologische onderzoek richten we ons op het voorspellen van populaties. Dit doen we met behulp van modellen. Het grote doel is om de verbanden tussen evolutie en ecologie te begrijpen. En dan vooral hoe menselijke invloeden effect hebben op populaties en hoe evolutie hierin een rol speelt.
Meer weten over het spannende vogelonderzoek van de dierecologen?
Kijk op de Dierecologie4All pagina!
Langlopend onderzoek naar populaties
Belangrijk zijn onze langlopende onderzoeken naar zangvogels, zoals koolmezen, pimpelmezen, bonte vliegenvangers en enkele andere soorten. Dit gebeurt op 4 locaties in Nederland (Hoge Veluwe, Vlieland, Oosterhout, Liesbos). Deze studies lopen als sinds 1955 en zijn de langstlopende onderzoeken naar bekende wilde vogels wereldwijd.
De studies hebben 3 hoofddoelen:
- We kijken naar veranderingen in populaties over de jaren heen. Bijvoorbeeld hoe soorten reageren op klimaatverandering.
- We doen op kortere termijn experimenteel onderzoek, waarbij we putten uit de enorme hoeveelheid beschikbare gegevens.
- We werken samen met verschillende onderzoeksgroepen wereldwijd, waarbij onze gegevens gebruikt worden voor nieuwe methoden of als onderdeel van een vergelijkende studie.
Om samenwerkingen met deze partijen makkelijker te maken, hebben we een vogeldatabase gemaakt: Studies of Populations of Individuals – Birds (SPI-Birds). Studies of Populations of Individuals – Birds (SPI-Birds)
Persoonlijkheid van dieren
Ook dieren hebben een persoonlijkheid. Iedereen met een huisdier kan dit bevestigen. Sterker nog, dierenpersoonlijkheid is een van de snelst groeiende onderzoeksgebieden in ecologie en gedragsbiologie. Dierecologie stond aan de wieg van dit onderzoeksveld en heeft over de jaren heen veel gegevens verzameld over hoe dieren zich gedragen in de natuur. Waarom bestaat dierenpersoonlijkheid? Wat veroorzaakt de verschillen in karakter en wat zijn de gevolgen? Met onze langdurige veldonderzoeken en gerichte binnen- en buitenexperimenten proberen we deze vragen te beantwoorden.
Impact van licht
Natuurlijke duisternis vind je ’s nachts alleen nog in afgelegen gebieden. Door economische groei en verstedelijking is er steeds meer kunstlicht. We onderzoeken hoe dit de aanwezigheid, het gedrag en het welzijn van verschillende dieren beïnvloedt. Als we begrijpen hoe dieren op licht reageren, kunnen we problemen voorkomen of verminderen.
Vogeltrek
We volgen al lange tijd vogels tijdens hun reizen, zoals de kleine zwanen sinds de jaren ‘90. Door sensoren en GPS te gebruiken, kunnen we precies zien waar ze zijn en wat ze doen. Zo kunnen we bijvoorbeeld zien of ze succesvol broeden. Door vogels jarenlang te volgen, zien we hoe ze hun routes aanpassen door veranderingen, vaak veroorzaakt door mensen. Ook gebruiken we vogels als indicatoren voor veranderingen in hun omgeving. We werken hiervoor nauw samen met Vogeltrekstation: https://vogeltrekstation.nl/
Medewerkers
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Prof. dr. Marcel Visser
- Functie
- Afdelingshoofd
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Prof. dr. Bart A. Nolet
- Functie
- Senior Researcher
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Prof. dr. Kees van Oers
- Functie
- Senior Researcher
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Dr. Melissah Rowe
- Functie
- Tenure Track
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Dr. ir. Kamiel Spoelstra
- Functie
- Researcher
Peer-reviewed publicaties
Consequences of alternative stable states for short-term model-based control of cyanobacterial blooms
Mapping wing morphs of Tetrix subulata using citizen science data: Flightless groundhoppers are more prevalent in grasslands near water
Quantifying the mutualism-antagonism continuum for seed removal by a granivorous disperser
Are increasing roosting waterbird numbers responsible for eutrophication of shallow lakes? Examples from a Danish Ramsar site
Odours of caterpillar-infested trees increase testosterone concentrations in male great tits
Short-time exposure to light at night affects incubation patterns and correlates with subsequent body weight in great tits (Parus major)
More management, less damage? With increasing population size, economic costs of managing geese to minimize yield losses may outweigh benefits
Divergence in evolutionary potential of life history traits among wild populations is predicted by differences in climatic conditions
Development and validation of the MosquitoWise survey to assess perceptions towards mosquitoes and mosquito-borne viruses in Europe
A systematic map of studies testing the relationship between temperature and animal reproduction
Long-term exposure to experimental light affects the ground-dwelling invertebrate community, independent of light spectra
Snowmelt progression drives habitat selection and vegetation disturbance by an Arctic avian herbivore
The role of male body size in mating success and male–male competition in a false widow spider
Author Correction
Structural genomic variation and migratory behavior in a wild songbird
Earlier springs increase goose breeding propensity and nesting success at Arctic but not at temperate latitudes
Climate change does not equally affect temporal patterns of natural selection on reproductive timing across populations in two songbird species
Female pond bats hunt in other areas than males and consume lighter prey when pregnant
The genomics of adaptation to climate in European great tit (Parus major) populations
Probing variation in reaction norms in wild populations
Implementing code review in the scientific workflow
Extreme events, trophic chain reactions, and shifts in phenotypic selection
Geese colonising New Land
Phenological mismatch affects individual fitness and population growth in the winter moth
Detecting climate signals cascading through levels of biological organization
Timing and intensity of goose grazing
Artificial selection for reversal learning reveals limited repeatability and no heritability of cognitive flexibility in great tits (Parus major)
Meta-research: The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gender gap in research productivity within academia
Individual life histories
The epigenetics of animal personality
Longitudinal covariation of testosterone and sperm quality across reproductive stages in the zebra finch
Limiting scaring activities reduces economic costs associated with foraging barnacle geese
The flexible brain
A standard protocol to report discrete stage-structured demographic information
Effects of anthropogenic light on species and ecosystems
Demographic signals of population decline and time to extinction in a seasonal, density-dependent model
Genotypes selected for early and late avian lay date differ in their phenotype, but not fitness, in the wild
Evolution in action
Year-round activity levels reveal diurnal foraging constraints in the annual cycle of migratory and non-migratory barnacle geese
Geese grazing grasslands
Translocation of shorebird siblings shows intraspecific variation in migration routines to arise after fledging
Rapid response screening for emerging zoonotic pathogens, barriers and opportunities
Winter food selection and exploratory behavior vary with natal territory characteristics in wild great tits
The pathology of co-infection with Usutu virus and Plasmodium spp. in naturally infected Eurasian blackbirds (Turdus merula)
Ingrained city rhythms
Female great tits (Parus major) reproduce earlier when paired with a male they prefer
Incubation behaviour of the Common Ringed Plover Charadrius hiaticula at different latitudes
Developmental stress does not induce genome‐wide DNA methylation changes in wild great tit (Parus major) nestlings
The effect of climate change on avian offspring production: A global meta-analysis
Critical transitions and evolutionary hysteresis in movement
Combining acoustic tracking and LiDAR to study bat flight behaviour in three-dimensional space
Manipulating spectra of artificial light affects movement patterns of bats along ecological corridors
Assessing West Nile virus (WNV) and Usutu virus (USUV) exposure in bird ringers in the Netherlands: A high-risk group for WNV and USUV infection?
Variation in DNA methylation in avian nestlings is largely determined by genetic effects
Sharing habitat: Effects of migratory barnacle geese density on meadow breeding waders
Extra-pair paternity is not repeatable between years in Pied Flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca)
Song overlapping and matching during low‐arousal singing and their relation to visual ornaments, parental care and breeding success in the great tit ( Parus major )
Common seed dispersers contribute most to the persistence of a fleshy-fruited tree
Rapid formation of new migration route and breeding area by Arctic geese
Environmental refuges from disease in host‐parasite interactions under global change
Estimating Density Dependence, Environmental Variance, and Long-Term Selection on a Stage-Structured Life History
Blue tits are outperformed by great tits in a test of motor inhibition, and experience does not improve their performance
Scientists' warning on climate change and insects
Experimentally testing mate preference in an avian system with unidirectional bill color introgression
Energetic and behavioral consequences of migration
Polygamy and purifying selection in birds
Wild goose chase:
Migratory swans individually adjust their autumn migration and winter range to a warming climate
Arbovirus persistence in North-Western Europe
Substrate composition impacts long-term vegetation development on blue-green roofs
Predicting the non-breeding distributions of the two Asian subspecies of Black-tailed Godwit using morphological information
On the Origin and Evolution of Sperm Cells (editorial)
Temperature synchronizes temporal variation in laying dates across European hole‐nesting passerines
Species-specific song responses emerge as a by-product of tuning to the local dialect
More grazing, more damage? Assessed yield loss on agricultural grassland relates nonlinearly to goose grazing pressure
Biased adult sex ratios in Western Europe populations of Little Bustard Tetrax tetrax as a potential warning signal of unbalanced mortalities
Transcriptional regulation underlying the temperature response of embryonic development rate in the winter moth
Behavioural epigenetics
Forest hoverfly community collapse
Transatlantic spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 by wild birds from Europe to North America in 2021
Publication practice in Taxonomy
Age-dependent timing and routes demonstrate developmental plasticity in a long-distance migratory bird
The opportunity for selection
A new fossil species of kiwi (Aves: Apterygidae) from the mid-Pleistocene of New Zealand
Risk screening and management of alien terrestrial planarians in The Netherlands
Conservation of birds in fragmented landscapes requires protected areas
Using skin temperature and activity profiles to assign chronotype in birds
epiGBS2
Brood Sex Ratio in European Honey Buzzards Pernis apivorus is Related to Spring Phenology
Quantifying fixed individual heterogeneity in demographic parameters
Causes of spatiotemporal variation in reproductive performance of Eurasian oystercatchers in a human-dominated landscape
Postnatal growth rate varies with latitude in range-expanding geese: The role of plasticity and day length
Microarthropod communities and their ecosystem services restore when permanent grassland with mowing or low-intensity grazing is installed
Integrated population modeling identifies low duckling survival as a key driver of decline in a European population of the Mallard
Genetic variance in fitness indicates rapid contemporary adaptive evolution in wild animals
Priorities for translating goodwill between movement ecologists and conservation practitioners into effective collaboration
The demographic causes of population change vary across four decades in a long-lived shorebird
Genomic consequences of a century of inbreeding and isolation in the Danish wild boar population
Sea crossings of migratory pink-footed geese: seasonal effects of winds on flying and stopping behaviour
Large mammal telomere length variation across ecoregions
Sperm Numbers as a Paternity Guard in a Wild Bird
Effect of Land-Use Change on the Changes in Human Lyme Risk in the United States
Avian seasonal reproduction in times of global warming
Host–parasite dynamics shaped by temperature and genotype: Quantifying the role of underlying vital rates
Effects of hunting on genetic diversity, inbreeding and dispersal in Finnish black grouse ( Lyrurus tetrix )
Prior territorial responses and home range size predict territory defense in radio-tagged great tits
Local abundances of terrestrial mammal and bird species around indigenous villages in Suriname
An ecologist's guide for studying DNA methylation variation in wild vertebrates
GPS tracking data of Eurasian oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus) from the Netherlands and Belgium
Performance of methods to detect genetic variants from bisulphite sequencing data in a non-model species
Current breeding distributions and predicted range shifts under climate change in two subspecies of Black-tailed Godwits in Asia