Past Events

The role of epigenetic inheritance in rapid evolutionary adaptation of invasive plants

Doctoral defense by Jasmin Herden, supervised by Mark van Kleunen
  • Date: May 12, 2025
  • Time: 01:30 PM - 04:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Jasmin Herden
  • Location: University of Konstanz
  • Room: M 801 + online
[more]

Unravelling the Past and Present: Marine Phytoplankton Population Dynamics in the face of the Anthropocene

Doctoral defense by Alexandra Schmidt, supervised by Laura Epp
  • Date: May 9, 2025
  • Time: 11:00 AM - 01:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Alexandra Schmidt
  • Location: University of Konstanz
  • Room: U307a + online
[more]

Natural history museums: bridging research and society

Rado Seminar by Paquita Hoeck + Lukas Keller
  • Date: May 9, 2025
  • Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Paquita Hoeck + Lukas Keller
  • Location: MPI-AB Möggingen
  • Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Möggingen + Online
  • Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
  • Contact: ddechmann@ab.mpg.de
Natural history and science museums are more than just showcases for scientific facts - they are dynamic interfaces between research and society. They captivate a wide audience, often providing the first contact of children with science and research. They make complex scientific topics tangible and ... [more]

Reciprocity in animals

Institute Seminar by Gerry Carter
  • Date: May 6, 2025
  • Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Gerry Carter
  • I'm an Associate Professor at Princeton University, a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), and a Freeman Hrabowski Scholar at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. I was previously an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University, a Humboldt Fellow at MPI-AB (then Ornithology) in Konstanz, and a Smithsonian Postdoc Fellow at STRI. I did my PhD with Jerry Wilkinson at the University of Maryland. Outside work, my hobbies are that my kids are 4 and 2 years old.
  • Location: MPI-AB Möggingen
  • Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Möggingen + Online
  • Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
  • Contact: ehurme@ab.mpg.de
Reciprocity has been a controversial topic in behavioral ecology for over 40 years. How often is cooperation between animals stabilized by conditional responses to each partner's helping (reciprocity)? How often are cooperative investments explained by product returns (pseudo-reciprocity)? I argue ... [more]

Adaptation in multiple plant-insect interactions and one scientist’s career

Institute Seminar by Carina Baskett
  • Date: Apr 29, 2025
  • Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Carina Baskett
  • Carina Baskett completed her PhD in 2018 in plant evolutionary ecology advised by Doug Schemske and Marjorie Weber at Michigan State University, USA. She did a postdoc with Nick Barton at Institute of Science and Technology-Austria outside Vienna, studying flower color variation in wild snapdragons. In 2021, she transitioned from research to grant writing and professional development in an interdisciplinary microbiology research center at Georgia Tech, USA. After three years, she moved back to Vienna and is coordinating a collaborative grant and a graduate program at Vetmeduni. When not at work or moving across the Atlantic, she is chasing after two kids and/or climbing.
  • Location: Bückle St. 5a, 78467 Konstanz
  • Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Bücklestrasse + Online
  • Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
  • Contact: aashbury@ab.mpg.de
A fundamental question at the intersection of ecology and evolution is how do biotic and abiotic environments differentially influence adaptation and diversification? The abiotic environment can change, but it cannot coevolve (a process of reciprocal adaptation). This profound difference is ... [more]

AI Experiences and Opinions – peer to peer exchange for doctoral researcher in biology and chemistry

  • Date: Apr 29, 2025
  • Time: 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
  • Location: online (zoom)
  • Host: KoRS-CB and IMPRS
  • Contact: imprs@uni-konstanz.de
[more]

PhD Update: Resource partitioning and coexistence in colonial frugivorous birds

Rado Seminar by Gustavo Alarcon-Nieto
  • Date: Apr 25, 2025
  • Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Gustavo Alarcon-Nieto
  • Location: Bückle St. 5a, 78467 Konstanz
  • Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Bücklestrasse + Online
  • Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
  • Contact: ddechmann@ab.mpg.de
Intra-specific competition is especially challenging for colonial species because the number of individuals is higher near the colony, and resources are depleted faster. Coexistence with conspecifics hence depends on mechanisms that minimize competitive interactions and favor resource partitioning ... [more]

Describing the energy landscape for flying animals: a tale of environmental proxies, scale and resolution

Institute Seminar by Martina Scacco
  • Date: Apr 15, 2025
  • Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Martina Scacco
  • My research interest spans different topics and animal systems, with the overarching interest of understanding how the physical environment affects animal movement behaviour, and in turn, how animal movement affects ecosystem dynamics. During my PhD and first postdoc at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, I focused on the predictability of animals’ flight behaviour and the environmental factors that affect energetic cost of transport across flying species. Recently, I joined the Dynamic Macroecology Unit at the Federal Swiss Institute WSL for a new postdoc project, where I will use theoretical models to investigate changes in the migratory patterns of waterbird species under climate change scenarios.
  • Location: MPI-AB Möggingen
  • Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Möggingen + Online
  • Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
  • Contact: cbaldoni@ab.mpg.de
Movement allows organisms to access resources and avoid unfavourable environmental conditions, predators, and competition, while facilitating the redistribution of nutrients, energy, and species across ecosystems that are kilometres to continents apart. However, movement comes at a cost, and ... [more]

On the radar: offshore aeroecology and dynamic aeroconservation of nocturnal landbird migration

Rado Seminar by Maja Bradaric
  • Date: Apr 11, 2025
  • Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Maja Bradaric
  • Location: MPI-AB Möggingen
  • Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Möggingen + Online
  • Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
  • Contact: ddechmann@ab.mpg.de
Nocturnal bird migration over land generally occurs across a broad spatial front but might have distinct spatiotemporal patterns at sea, shaped by the ecological barrier effect and unique environmental drivers. Understanding offshore movements is essential not only for building a comprehensive ... [more]

Cooperation in animals: from theory to data and back

Institute Seminar by Redouan Bshary
  • Date: Apr 8, 2025
  • Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Redouan Bshary
  • Redouan Bshary is a full professor at the Université de Neuchâtel. His research focus is on cooperation within and between species (mutualism).
  • Location: Bückle St. 5a, 78467 Konstanz
  • Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Bücklestrasse + Online
  • Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
  • Contact: cchen@ab.mpg.de
The empirical literature on mutual helping for direct fitness (often termed cooperation within species and mutualism between species) has long been dominated by the aim to test model predictions from rather stylised games, such as the iterated prisoner's dilemma. However, more empirically informed ... [more]
Show more
Web-View
Print Page
Open in new window
Estimated DIN-A4 page-width
Go to Editor View