Stefan Vriend

I am a developer and postdoctoral researcher at the SPI-Birds Network and Database. This is a network of researchers working on populations of breeding, individually marked birds with the aim to improve data accessibility and transparency, and to facilitate collaboration. As part of SPI-Birds, we are building robust pipelines for different research groups that output their individual-based breeding bird data in a community-defined standard format. In addition to tailoring pipelines, my work for the coming months will include: standardizing SPI-Birds' metadata, making long-term ecological data FAIR and AI-ready, and some research on large-scale intraspecific variation in various eco-evolutionary processes in hole-nesting passerines.

Before this, I was working as a PhD researcher at the Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. I worked on the project 'Evolution in a Changing Climate' (EVOCLIM), which was inspired by the ability of individuals and populations to adapt to an ever-changing environment. Using a unique set of long-term studies on European hole-nesting passerines, I explored the roles of density dependence, through competition within and between species, and environmental fluctuations in affecting and linking ecological and evolutionary processes.

At NTNU, I have also been involved in the organisation of three international conferences: EvoDemo7, the 7th Annual Meeting of the Evolutionary Demography Society (https://evodemo7.weebly.com/, Røros, Norway, 6 - 11 Oct 2020), Nordic Society Oikos conference (https://nordicsocietyoikos.org, Trondheim, Norway, 20 - 22 Feb 2018), 8th International Hole-Nesting Birds Conference (https://www.ntnu.edu/hnb-conference, Trondheim, Norway, 30 Oct - 2 Nov 2017).