Max Planck Institute for Ornithology

Non-invasive measurement of hormone metabolites from bird droppings

Competing females and caring males: Polyandry and sex roles in black coucals

Comparative behavioural ecology and evolutionary endocrinology of the black and the white-browed coucal

Hormonal modulation of behavior during resource-defence aggression in birds: the role of the environment

Physiology of long-distance migration (cooperation with Prof. Leonida Fusani, Universitá di Ferrara)

Migration remains one of the great mysteries of animal life. Many species of birds migrate each year and cross deserts or seas where food is not available. Bird migration requires behavioural and physiological adaptations that are particularly complex in nocturnal migrants. These species are normally active only during the day but perform migratory flights mainly or exclusively at night. If kept in cages, nocturnal migrants exhibit intense nocturnal activity ("Zugunruhe") during the migratory seasons in addition to the normal diurnal activity. The physiological mechanisms that underlie such a dramatic behavioural transition are basically unknown. Which physiological and other internal and external factors tell birds to stay and stop-over and what makes them to continue?
On Ponza and Ventotene, 2 small islands and stop-over sites in the Mediterranean sea used by hundred thousands of migratory songbirds each year, we study the physiology of birds on the move.