What’s the project about? Different individuals in populations vary in breeding success. For example, the clutch size of white storks can range from one to seven nestlings, depending on individual features and environmental conditions. Quantifying breeding success can provide valuable information on overall population trends but this often requires labor and time-intensive monitoring schemes. In the last years, we have monitored the migratory movements of many white storks with GPS and accelerometer devices to understand their migration strategies and survival. But is it also possible to use these movement data to determine the breeding success of white storks? Can nest revisitation patterns and accelerometer data inform us about clutch sizes and breeding outcomes? In this Bachelor project, you would be analyzing GPS and accelerometer data of breeding white storks using R, and you would perform simple statistical analyses to quantify the breeding behavior and breeding performances of individual storks.
Who can apply? The project is open to BSc students