Project on Movement Ecology extended for a second phase

Our CRC on Magnetoreception and navigation in vertebrates: from biophysics to brain and behaviour (SFB 1372), funded by DFG, has been prolonged for a second 4-year funding period.

My subproject, Nav04, is structured along four major goals:

1. We will assess the effectiveness of long-distance migration using true navigation abilities given multiple cues, proposed map senses and prior experience.

2. We will develop evolutionary models to predict how seasonal migration routes evolve based on imprecise input from magnetic sensors.

3. We will investigate to which degree collective migration facilitates successful migration of coral reef fish and bats, and how these systems compare among each other and to mostly solitary long-distance migratory birds.

4. To diagnose orientation strategies in free-flying birds, we will apply state space models to migratory tracking data and additionally perform a displacement experiment in Canada. This experiment aims to investigate whether translocated juvenile migrants compensate for displacement as predicted by our theory when a sun compass is used.