News
Welcome to Marina Sperling who just started her bachelor's project!
Marina will assess bird diversity and nesting opportunities across multiple campuses from the University of Innsbruck during the breeding season. The study will contribute to a larger research initiative aimed at understanding how urban environments influence bird populations and identifying strategies to enhance campus biodiversity.
14th of March 2025
Congratulations to Sabrina Achhorner, who successfully defended her master's thesis!
On March 10, Sabrina gave an excellent presentation of her master’s project on morphological variation in great tits and blue tits within urban landscape mosaics. Amongst others, Sabrina demonstrated that both species are systematically smaller in more than in less urbanised areas, likely as a result of nutritional stress during growth or phenotype-dependent habitat choice. Read more about the project here. With this, she successfully completed her master’s degree in Zoology at UIBK. We wish her all the best in her future endeavors!
12th of March 2025
New eWhale Project Publication available!
This study assesses the efficiency of DNA extraction protocols across four international laboratories as part of an environmental DNA (eDNA) initiative targeting marine megafauna. The findings reveal significant variability in detection success, with one laboratory's extraction method showing reduced performance for detecting target species DNA. By identifying these methodological discrepancies, this work highlights the need for standardized eDNA protocols to enhance global biodiversity monitoring and conservation efforts. Access the publication here.
January 2025
Welcome to Lotta Kempf, who has just joined our group as a master’s student!
Lotta, a student in the Ecology & Biodiversity master’s program at the University of Innsbruck, has just begun her master’s project with Marion Chatelain. In her research, she will explore how birds’ fidelity to their breeding sites changes over consecutive years. One of her key questions is whether this fidelity varies depending on the level of urbanization in the area. Are birds more likely to return to a forest or an urban park to raise their young? She will have more insights to share in a few months!
30th of January 2025
Welcome to Teresa Dönges, who started her master's project!
Teresa is studying the impact of urbanization and bird feeding on plumage coloration in the great tit and the blue tit. She is using data collected over two years as part of the project 'Evolutionary Consequences of Bird Feeding', which is expected to yield exciting results and provide a clearer understanding of the factors that explain variations in plumage coloration within urban landscapes.
18th of November 2024
Welcome to Thomas Curran!
Thomas is joining the GeMonA+ team as postdoctoral fellow. He will be fine-tuning arthropod and plant metabarcoding techniques and analyze arthropod eDNA from plant surfaces in comparison to data from sweep-net samples. You can also find him on X (twitter) as @ThomasCurran0.
18th of July 2024
"Zoologische Exkursion" bachelor's module on the UIBK newsroom!
This year, the assignment for bachelor's students participating in the "Bird in urban landscapes" excursion with Marion Chatelain was to write an article on the availability of food and nesting grounds for birds in urban green spaces. Sarah Zimmermann's excellent article has been selected for publication in the UIBK newsroom! You will find there valuable tips on how to make your garden bird-friendly!
15th of July 2024
Congratulations to Laure and Nora!
Laure Chapillon and Nora Nardou successfully defended their master's theses at Rennes University and Sorbonne University, respectively. As part of Marion Chatelain's project on the evolutionary consequences of bird feeding, they studied the variation in bird respiration rate (as a measure of stress) and plumage coloration in response to bird feeding within Innsbruck's urban mosaic.
1st of July 2024
Der Frosch im Wassertropfen
The detective work in the garden pond will now continue and we are looking for amateur researchers all over Austria! Sampling will take place in spring 2024. This time samples are taken from nature parks or national parks, protected zones and private ponds. Do you know of a body of water that is particularly worthy of protection and want to get involved? Please write to us! You can apply until the beginning of April.
Youtube Video (deutsch): Frog in a drop of water: A hands-on project for amphibian conservation
8th of March 2024
Welcome to Nora Nardou!
Nora, master's student at Sorbonne University (Paris, France), is conducting her master's project with Marion Chatelain within the "Evolutionary consequences of bird feeding" project. She is investigating whether bird feeding affects plumage colouration in great tits (Parus major) and blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) within Innsbruck and its surroundings.
8th of February 2024
"Urban Evolutionary Ecotoxicology" symposium at #Evol2024
Marion Chatelain is co-organizing the "Urban Evolutionary Ecotoxicology" Symposium at the 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology. The congress will take place in Montréal (Canada) from the 26th to the 30th of July. Despite cities being pollution hotspots, there's a knowledge gap on the impact of chemical exposure on the evolution of urban wildlife. Join the symposium to contribute to this essential dialogue! Abstract submission will open in February.
20th of January 2024
Welcome to Tina Weedman!
Tina is conducting her master's project with Marion Chatelain within the "Evolutionary consequences of bird feeding" project. She is investigating whether bird feeding influences gene flow in great tits (Parus major) and blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) within Innsbruck and its surroundings.
18th of January 2024
Welcome to Christian Dietrich!
Christian is conducting his bachelor's project with Marion Chatelain. He is investigating whether the respiration rate, a proxy for stress, differs between great tits (Parus major) and blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) based on whether they inhabit areas where bird feeding is common or not.
31st of October 2023
Summer Social Activiy and get-together with our new PhD-students!
Our scientific research group is depicted here during a delightful hiking excursion at the foot of the Patscherkofel. Everybody, who is interested in both research and social activities, is very welcome. Come join us for an enriching experience!
30th of June 2023
Zoologische Exkursion: Birds in urban landscapes
This semester, zoologist Marion Chatelain took biology students on an excursion to the UIBK Technology Campus and Botanical Garden to look for birds and their nests. As assessment, students had to write an article for the general public. The excellent article by Friederike Glauch and Katharina Mantl has been published in the UIBK newsroom!
26th of June 2023
How do ground beetles help against pests?
Our native ground beetle species are considered to be benefeical insects. We are researching their potential to find out how they support farmers and food suppliers in the fight against pests in a natural way.
Check the Video posts on ServusTV.
22th of June 2023
Evolutionary consequences of bird feeding: the first bird sampling campaign is over!
The first sampling campaign was a success: more than 300 great tits and blue tits have been ringed and measured. Five of them were old acquaintances from two years ago! The next campaign will start in November.
13th of June 2023
Welcome Philippe and Lauren
We welcome our new PhD studnets to our Applied Animal Ecology research group. Our team is looking forward to work with you in fascinating projects and your innovative ideas to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in important areas. We wish you a successful and fulfilling experience in Innsbruck and at our institute.
1st of June 2023
Welcome to Sabrina Achhorner, who just started her master's project!
Sabrina is looking at selective disappearance in great tits and blue tits. She is testing whether some phenotypes (e.g. longer beaks) are selected in more urbanised environments.
27th of March 2023
New scientific paper in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution!
"Urbanization disfavors wingless groups, particularly so on trees. Indeed, web spiders and springtails are less likely to be found in the city, where, on the contrary, aphids, woodlice and flies are common.” Interested? Read more on Frontiers Science News!
7th of March 2023
New citizen science project for the study of whale diet and population structure!
The eWHALE project, coordinated by Bettina Thalinger, is an international collaboration project bridging the gap between science, industry, and the public. It aims at exemplifying a novel strategy for marine biomonitoring, and boosting public support for marine conservation efforts.
7th of February 2023
A newspaper article by our working group was published in "Die Presse"!
The ground beelte is a hungry enrichment for ecosystems and a beacon of hope for Austrian biodiversity improvement. It is a few centimeter long and could replace sprays in agriculture in the long term.
Here you find the whole newspaper article.
4th of February 2023
We organize a symposium at Behaviour 2023 this summer in Bielefeld!
The behaviour of citizens is often shaped by preconceived beliefs of what defines an “eco-friendly environment” and what is beneficial for wildlife. Such misconceptions can be a result of scientists failing to reach the public, or findings being scattered across scientific disciplines. In this symposium we therefore aim to bring together researchers working in this emerging field. Our speakers will showcase recent work on the "Consequences of citizens' behaviour on wild animals' behaviour".
1st of February 2023
Congratulation to Riccardo Favaro and Michael Brunner for their new project!
The Early-Stage-Funding of the University of Innsbruck has been granted to the project AttractClicks: Identification of plants and their volatiles for attracting female click beetles to improve wireworm control. The project aims to investigate the role of plant volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for the oviposition choice of female Agriotes sputator click beetles. Therefore electroantennography, behavioral experiments and mesocosm experiments will be performed in 2023.
10st of January 2023
Welcome to Celina Dabernig , Stefan Famler and Nathalie Pirgstaller, who are conducting their bachelor's project with Marion Chatelain and Corinna Wallinger
- Celina is investigating how bird catching success with mist-net varies over the year and across the urban landscape.
- Stefan is looking at whether arthropod pests are common prey of great tits and blue tits.
- Nathalie is testing whether the consumption of food from bird feeders is linked to great tit and blue tit nutritional status
1st of December 2022