'Personality' describes the phenomenon that individuals consistently differ in their behaviour and have limited flexibility to respond to environmental challenges. Our interest lies in describing the causes of these differences and the consequences for individual fitness and population processes in order to better understand the existence and maintenance of individual variation in behaviour.
We study the behavioural, genetic and physiological mechanisms underlying personality expression, their role during development and the consequences for fitness. The ultimate goal is to take these processes that take place on an individual level and measure the consequences on a population level. We do this by combining experiments in our aviary facilities and in phenotyped wild populations. In our studies we make use of long-term data from natural populations, controlled experiments, both in lab and field populations and our genomic toolbox developed in the Songbird Genomics Project. We have a strong collaboration with the Behavioural Ecology group and Animal Breeding and Genomics both at the WUR.
If you are interesting in joining the group please contact Kees van Oers, together with a motivation why you would be interested in conducting your research in our group. If we don't have any open positions in the group, that means you should either bring your own money for your project, or that we seek possibilities for applying for external funding. We are especially interested in people wanting to apply for EU or VENI-VIDI fundung.
Van Oers group "in the news"
2019
05.10.2019
RTL nieuws: The great tit as our savior against the oak procession caterpillar (Dutch).
LINK 25.05.2019
RTL nieuws: Why one should care about individual difference sin behaviour (Dutch).
LINK05.05.2019
Vroege Vogels radio: Kees explains about animal personality in the field studio in Naarden (Dutch).
LINK 17.04.2019 Bernice bij
RTL nieuws - Susanne Uilenbroek (Dutch).
LINK13.04.2019 NRC Column van Yoep van 't Hek - Pandaporno (Dutch).
LINK13.04.2019 De Telegraaf - Dierentuinendieren privacy - Marcel Vink (Dutch).
LINK10.04.2019 NatureToday - Beleef de lente en persoonlijkheid (Dutch).
LINK09.04.2019
Radio 5 interview in "Je dag is goed" - Ruthger Radstaake (Dutch).
LINK 09.04.2019 Achter het masker: 'Beleef de Lente' en de persoonlijkheid van koolmezen met Bernice en Kees (Dutch).
LINK08.04.2019
NRC interview by Gemma Venhuizen (Dutch).
LINK05.04.2019 Resource - WUR magazine by Roelof Klijs (Dutch/ENG).
LINK15.03.2019 Buitendienst NPO Zapp - De brutale duif en andere dieren in de stad (Dutch).
LINK25.02.2019 NatureToday - Beleef de Lente with Bernice Sepers (Dutch).
LINK
Older
Wat wil het vrouwtje: Stukje in Resource (WUR) over onderzoek van Nina Bircher.
LINK
Populaire koolmees is niet socialer: Stukje in Resource (WUR) over onderzoek van Lysanne Snijders.
LINK
The smart great tit: Volkskrant article by Cor Speksnijders on the Nature communications great tit genome paper.
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Radio 1 interview (in Dutch): Koolmees geeft meer inzicht in persoonlijkheid.
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Anxiuous chicken: Kees commented on a paper for a Volkskrant article by Cor Speksnijders [LINK]
FACEBOOK for Great tits (Quest in one minute): Lysanne Snijders presenting her project [LINK]
Beleef de Lente: Lies Zandberg, Lysanne Snijders and Peter de Vruies report about what is happening around a great tit nest box [LINK]
Networking with Songbirds: A nice video impression about our work on social networks [LINK]
Epigenetic variations in the great tit genome: a report on avian ecological epigenetics on the WUR news page
[LINK]
Current Projects
DNA Methylation in great tits (PhD project Berncie Sepers; 2018-2022)
Behavioural traits have a stable and a labile component indicating both ian 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 intersting candidate linking these two aspects of behaviorual traits. Via candidate gene and whole genome appraoches we are unraveling the influences of DNA methylation on the expression of behavioural traits in the great tit.
Main PI and promotor: Kees van Oers, in Collaboration with
Koen Verhoeven (Co-promotor - Department of Terrestrial ecology, NIOO-KNAW)
Ecological epigenetics and the brain: the evolutionary consequences of epigenomic modifications in a songbird (PhD project Krista van den Heuvel; 2018-2022)
This unique inter-disciplinary collaboration between three of the larger institutes of the KNAW aims to elucidate the function of epigenetic regulation in the great tit brain to be able to study its role for the evolution of behaviour. Epigenetic mechanisms, such as DNA methylation and histone modification, are key epigenetic mechanisms that can alter gene expression, thereby affecting behavioural variation, both short- and long-term. While we know that epigenetic mechanisms act on different time scales and may be expressed in different tissues or brain regions, an essential gap in our knowledge is: how do epigenomic alterations contribute to fitness variation and what is their role in the evolution of behavioural traits?
Main PI and promotor: Kees van Oers, in Collaboration with Alexander Kotrschal (Co-promotor - Behavioural Ecology Group, WUR) and Christ de Zeeuw and Ingo Willuhn (NIN-KNAW) and Menno Creyghton (Hubrecht)
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 and promotor; Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen University) and co-supervised by Kees van Oers (Co-promotor).
Decoding Neural Correlates of Naturalistic Behaviour with Next-Generation Miniaturized Microscopes.
This inter-institute collaboration between the KNAW institutes NIN and NIOO, aims to develop groundbreaking miniaturized microscopes for recording brain activity during naturalistic behaviours to study the impact of epigenetic and environmental factors on individual and group behaviour in birds (Kees van Oers &
Veronika Laine) and rodents (
Tycho Hoogland-NIN). Fluorescence-imaging has been applied in studies of cell division, in-vivo tumour growth, and brain networks in action comprising thousands of neurons. Scalable, cost-effective and widely deployable fluorescence-imaging systems are sorely needed by the scientific establishment in general and the neuroscience community in particular and could find use in high-throughput diagnostics. Concurrent read-out and actuation of brain activity in a single portable epi-fluorescence microscope would not only enable the current collaboration, but open up a whole range of new research tracks, forge breakthroughs in our understanding of how brain networks function in models of social interaction, psychiatric disorders and motor dysfunction and aid the development of brain-machine interfaces with potential clinical use. We will here apply this Next-generation Miniaturized Microscope to evaluate which brain regions are involved in cognitive behaviours in great tits (Parus major) and study their epigenetic underpinnings.
MSc thesis projects
There are currently openings for student projects (major/minor or research thesis). Contact
Kees van Oers
At the moment we are searching one or two students for the following project(s):
- Epigenetic mechanisms underlying personality variation
- Long-term fitness consequences of great tit personality
- Sexual selection in the wild
Most recent student projects
Charlotte Kaffa (HAN Bioinformatics, Nijmegen) - The role of methylation in explaining personality differences in great tits
Judith Smit (MSc Utrecht University) -
Using social information or doing it yourself
Mara Ruiz Minano (MSc Groningen University) -
Extra-pair copulations and cooperation between neighbours
Mara is supervised by Nina Bircher, Kees van Oers and Simon Verhulst (RuG).
Lisanne van de Bos (MSc Utrecht University) -
The role of personality in mate choice in great tits
Lisanne was supervised by Lies Zandberg, Camilla Hinde and Kees van Oers.
Lonneke Haak (BSc HAS Den Bosch) -
Do great tits with different pesonality vary in their reaction to variation in intra- and interspecific alarm calls.
MSc or PhD opportunities
If you have an intriguing question that can be answered with our system, and you want to apply for a Marie-Curie Fellowship or a VENI? There are several possibilities for PhDs and postdocs to join the group.
Current group-members
Former group-members
Postdocs
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Eveline Verhulst -
The role of epigenetic variation in personality expression (NIOO - Strategic Funds)
Eveline is now Assistent professor in the Entomology Department at Wageningen University & Research (WUR)
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Alex is now Assistent Professor in Animal Behaviour at Swarthmore College, USA
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Nikkie van Bers - High throughput SNP genotyping as a tool for GWAS and QTL studies on personality in an F2 cross population.
Nikkie is now working at Genetwister Technologies BV
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Camilla is now Associate Professor at the Behavioural Ecology Group at WUR
PhDs
Supervised
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The role of personality in animal social networks (PhD project, Lysanne Snijders)
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 was supervised by Marc Naguib (PI -Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen University) and Kees van Oers (Co-promotor).
NIOO project site
WUR project site
Lysanne successfully defended her thesis on the 29th of April 2016 (Cum Laude) and is now a Postdoc at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries.
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How is phenotypic variation in great tits maintained by sexual selection? (PhD project Lies Zandberg; 2013-2018)
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 performed mate choice experiments with wild great tits to test for their mate preferences. Subsequently, we studied how reproductive investment is influenced by the parents own phenotype, their previously tested mate preferences and the partner they obtained. Lies was supervised by
Camilla Hinde (PI;
Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen University) and co-supervised by Kees van Oers.
Lies successfully defended her thesis November 2, 2018 and is currently doing a Postdoc at Queen Mary University in London
- Eva Fucikova (thesis). The role of frequency-dependent selection on the maintenance of perosnality variation in the great tit Parus major. 2010
Co-Supervised
- Ralf Kurvers. 2011. Personality in a group living species; social information, collective movements and social decision-making. Wageningen University.
