Description du projet
Étudier les adaptations comportementales des charognards
Les relations écologiques entre les charognards, les prédateurs et les proies ont un impact significatif sur leur comportement et la dynamique des populations. Cependant, le rôle des charognards a été sous-estimé dans l’écologie des réseaux alimentaires. Le projet FFP-BSS, financé par l’UE, étudiera les adaptations comportementales des corbeaux, charognards facultatifs et cleptoparasites, par rapport aux loups, un des prédateurs du parc national de Yellowstone. La recrudescence des loups a entraîné une augmentation de la disponibilité des charognes. Dans ce contexte, le projet entend tester et évaluer l’hypothèse selon laquelle la recolonisation d’un prédateur supérieur affecte la population des charognards facultatifs. Il s’agira d’examiner les adaptations comportementales des corbeaux, d’identifier leurs stratégies de recherche de nourriture et de fouille pour tirer parti des animaux tués par les loups, et de générer un ensemble de données en suivant par GPS les déplacements de ces oiseaux.
Objectif
The ecological relationships between scavengers, predators and their prey can substantially influence their behaviour and population dynamics. Still, the impact of scavenging has been largely underestimated in food-web ecology. In this project I want to investigate the behavioural adaptations of a facultative and kleptoparasitic scavenger in relation to a predator. I aim to study one of the Northern hemisphere’s most widespread predator-scavenger system: wolves and ravens. In many areas wolves recolonize and increase the time period over which carrion is available and abundant overall. By using existing data on a large spatial scale, I will test and quantify for the first time, whether the recolonization of a top predator affects facultative scavengers like ravens at a population level; if this is the case, I will quantify these effects. Besides this, the main focus of this proposal is to identify which foraging and scrounging strategies ravens follow to locate and exploit wolf kills. I will create a unique dataset by GPS-tracking ravens in the Yellowstone National Park, in the same area where also wolves are intensively monitored and GPS-tracked. I will describe this predator-scavenger system and study the behavioural adaptations of ravens in relation to the wolves’ movements and predation. The collaboration with the Yellowstone wolf project - a natural ecosystem with minimal human impact - and the use of the latest tracking technology, the supervision by leading experts in animal movement analysis and my expertise on ravens lead to a synergic project, bigger than the sum of its parts, and will advance this field of research. Appropriate training, supervision and new collaborations will allow a significant improvement in my career perspective and enable me to become an independent researcher.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EFCoordinateur
80539 Munchen
Allemagne