Project Details
Description
Wider research context
Global change is challenging biodiversity worldwide, and the ability of species to respond to rapid environmental change is a major focus of current biology. Yet how the effects of global change affect the dispersal strategies of highly social species remains poorly understood.
Objectives
The aim of this project is to experimentally simulate the effects of habitat degradation on dispersal strategies and to gain a better understanding of the socio-environmental drivers underlying such strategies in social species. Based on life-history theory, it can be predicted that global habitat degradation will reduce the adaptive value of delayed dispersal, through increased competition for critical resources, and that parent-offspring conflicts will increase, leading to earlier dispersal in more degraded habitats. Since the transition from environmental change to dispersal decisions is physiological, experimental manipulation of the physiological state of individuals can be used as a new tool to study the effects of habitat degradation on dispersal decisions.
Approach
We will conduct our experiments on a cooperatively breeding passerine (Placid greenbul, Phyllastrephus placidus) living in a well-studied, human-disturbed cloud forest archipelago in south-east Kenya. Building on a unique 20-year dataset, we will (i) manipulate the physiological state of individuals using CORT implants, and (ii) use state-of-the-art high-resolution radio-tracking technology to monitor their dispersal behavior and ultimately (iii) model different pathways through which habitat degradation can modulate dispersal strategies in tropical cooperative breeders.
Innovation
The project is highly innovative in three different ways. First, while dispersal is one of the most important biological processes in the context of anthropogenic change, its impact on dispersal strategies of social species is still a highly underexplored field. The expected contributions to the fields of conservation biology, theoretical biology and movement ecology and physiology are therefore high. Secondly, although studying dispersal in a (tropical) natural environment is a major challenge, we take a big step forward by tracking experimentally-manipulated individuals in a semi-automated way. Finally, this project strongly builds on, and will strongly contribute to, one of the longest-running avian studies in sub-Saharan Africa. Such long-term studies are crucial to better understand anthropogenic impacts on the world's most biodiverse ecosystems.
Principal investigators involved
The proposed project is a collaboration between Dr Beate Apfelbeck of the University of Salzburg (Austria) and Prof Luc Lens and Dr Laurence Cousseau of the University of Ghent (Belgium). This collaboration brings together highly complementary expertise in behavioural endocrinology, movement ecology, behavioural sociobiology, and ecology of global change.
Global change is challenging biodiversity worldwide, and the ability of species to respond to rapid environmental change is a major focus of current biology. Yet how the effects of global change affect the dispersal strategies of highly social species remains poorly understood.
Objectives
The aim of this project is to experimentally simulate the effects of habitat degradation on dispersal strategies and to gain a better understanding of the socio-environmental drivers underlying such strategies in social species. Based on life-history theory, it can be predicted that global habitat degradation will reduce the adaptive value of delayed dispersal, through increased competition for critical resources, and that parent-offspring conflicts will increase, leading to earlier dispersal in more degraded habitats. Since the transition from environmental change to dispersal decisions is physiological, experimental manipulation of the physiological state of individuals can be used as a new tool to study the effects of habitat degradation on dispersal decisions.
Approach
We will conduct our experiments on a cooperatively breeding passerine (Placid greenbul, Phyllastrephus placidus) living in a well-studied, human-disturbed cloud forest archipelago in south-east Kenya. Building on a unique 20-year dataset, we will (i) manipulate the physiological state of individuals using CORT implants, and (ii) use state-of-the-art high-resolution radio-tracking technology to monitor their dispersal behavior and ultimately (iii) model different pathways through which habitat degradation can modulate dispersal strategies in tropical cooperative breeders.
Innovation
The project is highly innovative in three different ways. First, while dispersal is one of the most important biological processes in the context of anthropogenic change, its impact on dispersal strategies of social species is still a highly underexplored field. The expected contributions to the fields of conservation biology, theoretical biology and movement ecology and physiology are therefore high. Secondly, although studying dispersal in a (tropical) natural environment is a major challenge, we take a big step forward by tracking experimentally-manipulated individuals in a semi-automated way. Finally, this project strongly builds on, and will strongly contribute to, one of the longest-running avian studies in sub-Saharan Africa. Such long-term studies are crucial to better understand anthropogenic impacts on the world's most biodiverse ecosystems.
Principal investigators involved
The proposed project is a collaboration between Dr Beate Apfelbeck of the University of Salzburg (Austria) and Prof Luc Lens and Dr Laurence Cousseau of the University of Ghent (Belgium). This collaboration brings together highly complementary expertise in behavioural endocrinology, movement ecology, behavioural sociobiology, and ecology of global change.
| Status | Active |
|---|---|
| Effective start/end date | 1/07/24 → 31/12/27 |