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Project properties |
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| Title | Are bigger groups better care-providers? |
| Group | Behavioural Ecology |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 30-36 |
| Supervisor(s) | Miriam Kuspiel
Sjouke A. Kingma Kat L. Bebbington |
| Examiner(s) | Marc Naguib |
| Contact info | sjouke.kingma@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2020/03/10 |
| End date | 2030/03/10 |
| Description | Group living can have various benefits: Larger groups might be able to defend larger territories, have better protection from predators, or might have more helpers taking care of the offspring in case of cooperatively breeding species. This project investigates whether larger groups of cooperatively breeding white-crested helmetshrikes indeed provide more care and thus produce more offspring. Groups and nests are monitored and augmented with live and video observations during different nesting stages to identify the total amount of care and if all individuals help with nest-building, incubation and nestling provisioning. |
| Used skills | animal monitoring, ornithological field work, video analyses, potentially labwork |
| Requirements | The fieldwork takes place in the savanna of Eswatini in Southern Africa; an adventurous attitude is an advantage: the fieldsite is beautiful but remote and accommodation is basic. |