Research of Behavioural Ecology
The aim of the Behavioural Ecology Group is to answer questions on the causes and consequences of behavioural traits and strategies, and to determine their implications especially in social contexts.
Our main research focus is social behaviour, involving a range of projects. This includes research on communication, cooperation, cognition, family conflicts, predator-prey interactions, social networks, territoriality and movement decisions, animal personality, and early developmental effects on behaviour, using wild and captive animals as model organisms.
By applying our expertise in animal behaviour to different study systems - wild animals, farm animals and companion animals - our research and teaching integrates knowledge from these approaches. Our interests in behavioural ecology, applied animal behaviour and animal welfare and conservation behaviour ideally complement each other leading to knowledge transfer between these fields. One linking approach is our focus on individual behavioural decisions and their causes, correlates and predictors, which all play a central role in understanding behaviour in animals from a mechanistic and an evolutionary perspective.
Research themes
Behavioural ecology
Our research in behavioural ecology focuses on understanding how individual animals and populations function and how selection acts on fitness, using a range of different behavioural and life history traits. Our main study organisms are birds and fish.
Conservation biology
Our research in conservation biology encompasses several projects. Part of our work includes the use of animal conditioning interventions to reduce human-wildlife conflicts, which can provide valuable insights for policy and management decisions.
Companion animal behaviour
At the Behavioural Ecology group we are interested in a variety of topics linked to the ecology, behaviour and cognition of both cats and dogs. We study cats living at Carus as well as pet dogs living in the Netherlands and free-ranging dogs living in Morocco.
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