Prof. dr. Kees van Oers

1. Causes and Consequences of Animal Personality

a. Evolutionary genetics of avian personality
In this project I aim to unravel the quantitative and molecular (epi)genetic basis of avian personalities and to study genotype x environment interaction. It is largely based on selected lines for fast and slow exploratory behaviour and an F2 cross population between the lines, but it also applies association studies on long-term data from phenotyped pedigreed wild populations.

b. The role of the social environment for animal personality 

c. Individual differences in cognitive ability and performance

d. Individual differences in behaviour related physiological mechanisms

e. The fitness consequences of variation in personality

2. Songbird Genomics

a. Avian Ecological Epigenetics: DNA Methylation in great tits

Behavioural traits have a stable and a labile component indicating both an influence of genetic and environmental effects on the expression of these traits. Methylation of cytosines in CpG contexts, particularly within CpG islands, is known to affect gene expression, and is therefore an good candidate to link these two aspects of behaviorual traits. Via whole genome, restricted reopresentation and candidate gene appraoches we unravel the influences of DNA methylation on the expression of behavioural traits in the great tit.

with: Koen Verhoeven (Department of Terrestrial ecology, NIOO-KNAW), In collaboration with: Ole Madsen and Kyle Schachtschneider (ABG - WUR) and Martijn Derkcx (Bioinformatics) 

b. High throughput genetics and QTL mapping in a wild passerine the great tit

In this project we develop the genomic tools for our model system. 

With: Prof. Dr. Martien Groenen (Animal Breeding and Genomics Center- WUR) and Prof. Dr. Marcel Visser (NIOO-KNAW)
In collaboration with Dr. Jon Slate (Sheffield University) and Prof. Dr. Ben Sheldon (EGI, Oxford)

3. Neurocorrelates of naturalistic behaviour using Nano microscopes

The highly portable microscopes that are being developed by the Institute for Neuroscience (NIN-KNAW) will enable high-throughput screening and the decoding of neural correlates of naturalistic behaviour. That makes them particularly useful for the research done at the vanOers group. We are interested in how evolutionary, ecological and 'epigenetic' factors affect the behaviour of animals. But what happens to the brain circuits that underlie animal behaviour in life free-moving individuals is largely unknown. Here we will measure brain activity in certain brain regions to monitor brain activity during particular tasks.

With: Dr. Tycho Hoogland (PI) NIN-KNAW

see also this LINK

Collaborative projects with Marc Naguib and Camilla Hinde at the Behavioural Ecology Group (Wageningen University & Research)

The role of personality in animal social networks (PhD project Lysanne Snijders; 2010-2015)

An individual’s personality has a significant influence on its fitness in interaction with the social environment. Yet very few studies focussed on how the personality of an individual interacts one on one with its social natural environment. Until now researchers were unable to simultaneously identify the personalities of individuals in the wild and quantify their pair-wise interactions. By using a state of the art tracking technology called Encounternet, we can now follow a large number of individuals continuously through both space and time, in a natural population of personality typed great tits. This enables us to study the influence of an individual’s personality on its place in a social network for many individuals in the wild simultaneously. Lysanne is supervised by Marc Naguib  (PI; Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen University) and co-supervised by Kees van Oers.

How is phenotypic variation in great tits maintained by sexual selection? (PhD project Lies Zandberg; 2014-2018)

Female choice for top quality males is expected to result in the evolution of exaggerated male secondary sexual characters. However, a strong directional preference for the ‘best’ males and their specific heritable traits would theoretically cause a fast decline in genetic variation among males. In natural populations under sexual selection however, diversity in ornaments and genes is still present. How, then, is genetic variation within populations maintained in the presence of sexual selection? This project proposes that individuals may vary in their mate preference, preferring mates with strengths that complement their own phenotype. Both male and female great tits display mutual ornaments, which are important in dominance interactions, advertisements of parental investment and sexual selection. We will perform mate choice experiments with wild great tits to test for their mate preferences.  Subsequently, in spring we will study how reproductive investment is influenced by the parents own phenotype, their previously tested mate preferences and the partner they obtained. Lies is supervised by Camilla Hinde (PI; Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen University) and co-supervised by Kees van Oers.

Sexual selection in the wild: male song and female choice in great tits Parus major. (PhD project Nina Bircher; 2016-2020)

Reproductive decisions directly affect fitness and thus have fundamental effects on evolutionary processes. Mate choice in many species is strongly determined by advertisement signals, providing information about signaller quality, motivation and personality. Yet, studies on female choice have been either correlative by linking reproductive decisions to male song traits or have been conducted in the lab. Thus, understanding the behavioural decisions underlying female choice for males has been hampered by the difficulty in tracking movements of the secluded females providing the missing link between female spatial behaviour, male song, actual female song preferences and fitness. The aim of this project thus is to fill this central gap by determining the behavioural decisions underlying female choice, i.e. by quantifying the relations between male singing and female song preference and movements and link these to personality traits and fitness-relevant genetic analyses using wild great tits (Parus major) as model. This project will apply a unique radio-tracking solution (Encounternet), combined with male song monitoring, genetic analyses, and integrated lab- and field female choice tests using wild birds. Integrating these approaches will allow us to obtain unprecedented insights into female choice and its consequences under natural conditions and thus to unravel fundamental behavioural principles in sexual selection. Nina is supervised by Marc Naguib  (PI; Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen University) and co-supervised by Kees van Oers, Camilla Hinde (WUR and Katharina Riebel (Leiden University).