Stage de Master 2 pour une durée de 5 mois (à partir de Janvier) au DEPE. Le stage est gratifié.
Contacter Vincent Viblanc (http://www.iphc.cnrs.fr/-Vincent-A-Viblanc-.html)
Linking animal behaviour to individual fitness in a changing world
Keywords. personality, behavioural plasticity, ageing, life history strategies
Behaviour
is a frontline response to environmental change and is often regarded
as a highly plastic trait. Therefore, widespread reports of behavioural
consistencies across time/contexts in nature, often refereed to
personality traits, call into question the best way to study the
adaptiveness and diversity of behavioural traits. As climatic change is
predicted to increase the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather
episodes, it remains unclear whether some behavioural traits are better
adapted to face environmental changes and to which extent long-lived
individuals could adjust their behaviours to the prevailing
environmental conditions whereas short-lived individuals adopt fixed
behaviours.
In
this project, you will have access to a unique long-term study of
long-lived bird species, the Alpine swift, that forages exclusively on
its wings, thus making this species highly vulnerable to episodes of
inclement weather. Behaviours on the nest were recorded for all the
individuals over the past 15 years, which will allow you to investigate
how plastic is this trait, whether short- and long-lived individuals
differ in the behavioural plasticity and consistency, influence of the
climatic factors on behavioural plasticity, and ultimately how
behaviours related to individual fitness.