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.
The project will be based at the IPHC-DEPE in Strasbourg for a period of 5 months, starting in Jan 2016. Field work in Alpine swift colonies in Switzerland is planned in May.
The student will be co-supervised by Vincent Viblanc, Pierre Bize and François Criscuolo. A gratuity of 546 euros/mo. is included.
If interested, get in touch with Vincent Viblanc at vincent.viblanc [ chez ] iphc.cnrs.fr
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.
The project will be based at the IPHC-DEPE in Strasbourg for a period of 5 months, starting in Jan 2016. Field work in Alpine swift colonies in Switzerland is planned in May.
The student will be co-supervised by Vincent Viblanc, Pierre Bize and François Criscuolo. A gratuity of 546 euros/mo. is included.
If interested, get in touch with Vincent Viblanc at vincent.viblanc [ chez ] iphc.cnrs.fr