Eco-evolutionary Dynamics Workshop in Leiden

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This week, Cindy and I participated in the “Eco-evolutionary Dynamics in a Changing World” workshop at Lorentz Center, Leiden.

The organisers, Stephanie Jenouvrier, Thomas Reed and Marcel Visser, brought together a select group of researchers working at the interface of ecology and evolution, from both theoretical and empirical backgrounds, to brainstorm on our current understanding of eco-evolutionary dynamics. Unlike most other workshops, this one had quite an interesting format. There were only a few plenary talks, and most of the time participants held smaller break-out sessions on their own research area. Although there were no final road-maps or even a clear definition of eco-evolutionary semantics, these break-out sessions, I think, worked very well for tossing around ideas and discussing more specialised topics among those with shared interests. For our part, we received great input on our two projects.

Gabriele receives the Claraz Research Grant

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One of our gentlemen carrying a GPS collar + crittercam.
One of our gentlemen carrying a GPS/crittercam collar.

Congratulations to Gabriele for receiving the well-deserved Georges und Antoine Claraz Donation for his brown bear project in north-eastern Turkey. Yet another bear will be carrying our GPS collars.

Here’s a cool article on Georges Claraz, a Swiss naturalist (1832–1930) who pioneered the first expeditions to northern Patagonia.

Jérôme Guélat, our new GIS specialist from Vogelwarte.ch

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A warm welcome to Jérôme Guélat, who is starting his PhD degree in February. Jérôme’s PhD is an exciting collaboration with Dr. Marc Kéry from the Swiss Ornithological Institute, where Jérôme has been working as a GIS specialist. For his PhD, he will investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of breeding bird populations across Switzerland using a hierarchical model and disparate data collected over large spatial and temporal scales. We are looking forward to having him on board as our spatial analysis expert and embassador of the Vogelwarte.

Luca Börger’s visit

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lucaThis week, we hosted an academic visitor, Dr. Luca Börger, an animal movement ecologist from Centre for Biological Studies, Chize. Luca’s research on animal dispersal focuses on developing new methods for quantifying individual differences in movement, and has cover a variety of systems from grasshoppers to deer. During his visit, Luca gave a great talk about his recent work on animal movements across spatiotemporal scales, and ran a “movement analysis clinique”, which was much appreciated by IEU students and postdocs.

Cindy Canale, our new eco-physiologist

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Together with Dr. Aurelie Cohas and Prof. Dom Allain (University of Lyon), who have been working on an Alpine marmot population in French Alps for over 20 years, we have been thinking on a research plan to investigate the physiological, behavioural and demographic responses of the rotund rodents to environmental change. All we needed was an eco-physiologist, who would help us to better understand the hibernation physiology, and Dr. Cindy Canale stepped on to the scene. Cindy wrote an excellent fellowship proposal, all the while chasing lemurs in Madagaskar, and we just learned that she won the prestigious Marie Curie Postdoctoral Award. She is joining our ranks in February. A big welcome to our group and congratulations for the well-deserved award!

Stefan Sommer, our new rotifer meister

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Many long-term studies on larger vertebrates provide us with only a single time series to study population dynamics. To test all the interesting hypotheses arising from these studies, we have to shrink those systems into tubes and replicate under different treatments. For this, with the invaluable help of Dr. Diego Fontaneto (Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Italy), we chose the rotifers as our experimental system. It didn’t take too long for us to realize that we needed expert help. And that help arrived as a swiss-army-knife of a guy: Stefan Sommers, our research associate, rotifer-meister, orchestrator of our microcosm lab!

Luis-Miguel Chevin’s visit

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luisThis week, we hosted Dr. Luis Miguel Chevin, an evolutionary biologist from the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology at Montpellier. Luis studies contemporary evolution, investigating how phenotypic plasticity and evolution interact to help populations persist in a changing environment. His research on adaptive evolution has so far covered multiple levels of biological organisation from genes to populations. During his visit, Luis gave a seminar about his recently published work on genetic constraints on adaptation.

Chevin L.-M. 2012. Genetic constraints on adaptation to a changing environment. Evolution.

Gabriele Cozzi, our new movement ecologist

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Gabriele Cozzi, an almost-done PhD student in the Schmid Group, came to my office one day with bunch of stinky gps collars and asked me if we could make any use of these.

20121211-230525.jpgCouple weeks later, he was hugging not-so-teddy bears in Northeastern Turkey. One thing led to another, and Gabriele is now (his successful defence in Feb permitting) a postdoc in our group specialising on animal movement ecology. His research plans are shaping up and will involve carnivores as dangerous as meerkats and as cuddly as bears.