Parental investment
For my PhD at the University of Antwerp and Ghent University, I focused on how a seabird species, the Lesser black-backed gull (Larus fuscus), adapts its parental behaviour to the prevailing social and ecological conditions. I first investigated how parents respond to their social environment, as in biparental species such as Lesser black-backed gulls, the partner contributes to the overall level of care. Therefore, the optimal balance between costs and benefits, and thus the trade-off between current and future reproduction, partially depends on the partner. Subsequently, I incorporated ecological aspects of the environment, as parents rely on the environment when providing resources to their offspring. Changes in the ecological conditions of the food landscape may require modifications of the foraging behaviour in order to successfully raise offspring.
Human foraging |
Nowadays I study human foraging in ice fishers as a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. I carry out fieldwork in Finland to investigate how groups of people cooperate and integrate prior, sampling and social information for decision making across socio-ecological settings.