Wageningen University appoints Professor of Behavioural Ecology

Wageningen University considers a full regular chair in the field of animal behaviour vital to the organisation, both in terms of animals kept in a controlled environment (agricultural animals) and animals in their natural environment. Education in subjects relating behavioural ecology is an important part of the University’s Animal Sciences, Biology and Forest & Nature Management programmes. Teaching and research in the field of animal behaviour is currently carried out in various parts of Wageningen University.

Education and research in behavioural ecology mainly focuses on the evolution of differences in behaviour between individual animals, populations and species, and the gradual changes in this behaviour. It is about why animals behave as they do, rather than how they behave. The emphasis in Prof. Naguib’s teaching remit will be on how animals adapt their behaviour in response to changes in the environment, and the role that evolution plays in this process. A special aspect of the job will be applying ecological knowledge about natural behaviour to help organise precision livestock farming. In this respect, the chair group is an important part of the Centre for Animal Welfare & Adaptation, in which Wageningen University (represented by Wageningen Livestock Research) is pooling its resources in the field of animal welfare.

Marc Naguib (Kiel, D, 1964) studied biology in Berlin and was awarded a PhD in 1995 at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, US. Since 2008, he has worked as a senior researcher in animal ecology at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) and spent time at the Université Paris Ouest in Nanterre (F) as a visiting professor in 2010.