Centre for Research on Ecology, Cognition and Behaviour of Birds

🐦 EcoBird is hiring a Postdoc in animal cognition! Join us + @themanybirds.bsky.social to investigate innovation & problem-solving in birds. 📅 Start: as early as Jan 2026 🌍 Funded through UGent’s international mobility scheme More info & how to apply ↓ www.ugent.be/en/work/scie...

(No) Birdbrain at Docville last night🎬 Really interesting take on bird cognition and conservation. Great to see @fredverb.bsky.social and @ecobird.bsky.social research brought to the screen 🐦 A short science documentary by Lode Desmet

New from our @ecobird.bsky.social lab!

ECoBird @ecobird.bsky.social at the European Conference of Tropical Ecology in Passau #ECTE2026 🦜

🚨Not one, but two papers now out on response inhibition (also called motoric self-regulation or inhibitory control in the field of animal cognition). Many studies find no link between individual performance on different tasks supposedly measuring response inhibition. 1/6

MAJOR NEWS! We just launched an awesome new tool! The illustrated Birds of the World Phylogeny Explorer lets users trace any bird’s lineage, compare species relationships, and explore major evolutionary milestones with a click of a button. SHARE and EXPLORE! birdsoftheworld.org/bow/news/phy...

New paper out! Early-life social instability increases aggression in chickens, but does not affect response inhibition 🐤 We discuss what this means for developmental links between social environments, cognition, and social behaviour, highlighting strong context dependence Full text: rdcu.be/eYOzC

Very grateful to co-authors @vernouilleta.bsky.social @birgitszabo.bsky.social An Martel, Luc Lens & @fredverb.bsky.social, & other members of @ecobird.bsky.social for their support! Also pleased for this paper to be part of an exciting collection in acta ethologica link.springer.com/collections/...

Please repost: 🚨Field assistant position 🐧 We offer a 14-months field assistant position through the French Polar Institute to work on king penguin ecophysiology and behavioral ecology. Requirements: EU citizen < 30yo having experience with harsh fieldwork & wild bird/mammal handling/sampling.

Doing some cool but challenging sciencing in the Gambia 🐦📡 Testing out the detection range for a #MotusWTS installation 🤞 So many cool species seen as well, lots of ideas for projects! @ecobird.bsky.social @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social

Adventure time! Off to Kartong Bird Observatory in the Gambia to test out #MotusWTS using a mobile #Sensorgnome and @lotektelemetry.bsky.social Nanotag! Me and my load of tech and trusty duct tape will be repping @ecobird.bsky.social funded by @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social. 🐦📡

New study on the way 📣 I am currently raising cute quails 🐥 to study the effects of enrichment on the development of the brain, cognition, behaviour, and health! I am learning loads of new skills @ecobird.bsky.social

It took almost a year to write this review on causes and consequences of ranging in chicken 🐔! This was a huge collaborative effort by @ecobird.bsky.social @pec-exeter.bsky.social and @vitorhbf.bsky.social ! I am very proud of the outcome. You can check out the preprint here: doi.org/10.32942/X22...

New preprint out on bioRxiv 🌳 doi.org/10.1101/2025... 🌳 Using data from 19 forest plots in Flanders, we found that forest structural complexity isn’t a consistent predictor of multidiversity and responses across taxa were mostly weak or inconsistent. @ecobird.bsky.social | @fornalab.bsky.social

Wonderful to see this project published! We were glad to contribute a small part to this impressive collaborative effort through ECoBird.

@ecobird.bsky.social

Congratulations @alixkristiansen.bsky.social on your first paper from your PhD - it's out! @ecobird.bsky.social journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

🚨 Calling researchers, students, technicians in cognition 🚨 We’re running a 10-min anonymous survey on how animal cognition is defined and studied across disciplines (from ecology, ethology, psychology, neurology, etc). 🧠✨ Scan the QR code & share widely #AnimalCognition #ResearchSurvey #Science

🚨 Calling researchers, students, technicians in cognition 🚨 We’re running a 10-min anonymous survey on how animal cognition is defined and studied across disciplines (from ecology, ethology, psychology, neurology, etc). 🧠✨ Scan the QR code & share widely #AnimalCognition #ResearchSurvey #Science

Voortaan dr. Charlotte Van Driessche verdedigde vrijdag met succes haar doctoraat ‘Implementation of eDNA metabarcoding as an innovative tool for biomonitoring fish communities in lotic waters’, met @universiteitgent.bsky.social en @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social. Beluister 📻 bit.ly/PhDCharlotte

Had an amazing week in Kolkata at #Behaviour2025! Very grateful for the opportunity to present my work 🐥 Also super glad I got to explore the city and see some of it's wildlife, and to chat cool science with so many nice people!

🔥Wildfire tragedy in Portugal The Cinereous Vultures (𝐴𝑒𝑔𝑦𝑝𝑖𝑢𝑠 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑢𝑠) need our help. A massive wildfire destroyed not only their nests, but also the breeding and acclimatisation centre in Douro International Nature Park in the North of Portugal. #birds #wildfire 📸Yves Adams

We had 4 talks, and two posters so great representation of @ecobird.bsky.social from Ghent University.

Successful @ecobird.bsky.social #EOU2025 trip. Great presentations by @cesarepacioni.bsky.social, Jolien Van Malderen, Caoimhe Abdul-Wahab, Mélibée Morel and me! Well done team 👏 Loads of fun, and surprisingly good Welsh weather 😇

@ecobird.bsky.social at #EOU2025 🐦 Looking forward to sharing our work and connecting with the European ornithology community Caoimhe Abdul-Wahab | Poster S1 @lucyjmitchell.bsky.social | Symp 11 Mélibée Morel | Oral 17 @cesarepacioni.bsky.social | Oral 8 Jolien Van Malderen | Symp 2 & Poster S1

Happy to share my last PhD paper where we investigated the istopic niche of black-faced cormorants both for the breeding season and the non-breeding period. doi.org/10.1080/0158... #seabirds #ornithology

New paper out! To Peck or Not To Peck: The influence of early-life social environment on response inhibition and impulsive aggression in Japanese quails royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

It forms part of an exciting Special Issue of Phil Trans, "Selection shapes diverse animal minds", edited by @ellileadbeater.bsky.social & @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social Co-authors include @ecobird.bsky.social @samellisq.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

The survival of the smartest? Assessing how cognition shapes fitness in animals. A really fun collaboration to be part of—thread below! 👇

Proud to share our newest gecko paper published @ecol-evol.bsky.social! We raised geckos either with or without their parents and found some effects on the development of behaviour and cognition! Read the rest here: doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

New paper led by @anneleendewulf.bsky.social out now! 👇🎊

Nice to see more media attention for this paper 📰🥳 www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/ar...

This new #RSOS paper looks at neophobia across social contexts in juvenile herring #gulls. Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... @ecobird.bsky.social‬

This work has also made it to the news 📰 📢 www.independent.co.uk/news/science... 📢 www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a...

🚨New Paper Out!🚨 We found that juvenile herring gulls in groups were less neophobic (quicker to eat & spent more time near novel objects) than individuals tested alone🤝 🎉 Read the preregistered report, led by Sophia Knoch & Reinoud Allaert, here: doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

A great @ecobird.bsky.social team building day at the Zwin Natuur Park in Knokke-Heist 🐦

Nice day out with the @ecobird.bsky.social team! saw some birds, ate some snacks & embarrassed myself in some beach games 🥐🦆⛱️

Thanks to the @ecobird.bsky.social team for the warm welcome these past two days! I really enjoyed sharing ideas, learning about their work on chickens and quail, and having great conversations. Hoping for fruitful collaborations in the future! @katywillcox.bsky.social @birgitszabo.bsky.social

Data from detection reaction systems on turbines provide a unique opportunity to study bird behavior in wind energy facilities. To learn more, check out our recent work in @jappliedecology.bsky.social 👇

I am very proud to share our new gecko research! We wanted to know if experimenter identity influences gecko behaviour during experiments that increases error of behavioural measurements. The answer is yes, identity matters but only in a familiar context! OA paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Yesterday evening, I had the pleasure of sharing ECoBird’s research with filmmakers and producers at DOCVILLE’s Science Pitch. Regardless of the competition’s outcome, it was a genuinely enjoyable experience—and great to see how much interest there is in birds! 🐦🎬 @ecobird.bsky.social #DOCVILLE

New paper in press! 🐎🏁 "What We Can Learn from Horse Races: Response Inhibition Across Species" 📄 doi: doi.org/10.31219/osf... In this paper, I argue for applying frameworks like the horse race model to study response inhibition in animals.

@AnneleenDewulf presents her talk discussing a two-stage model of #MotorInhibition in Herring Gulls where results showed that in most trials birds paused or slowed down in response to the stop signal which supports a two-stage model of stopping! #CO3_2025 🧪🥼🔬