Lab Members

Michael Griesser is Heisenberg Fellow at the Department of Biology at the University of Konstanz (Germany), and is associated with the Center for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior at the University of Konstanz, and the Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour. He was previously an SNF Research Professor at the University of Bern and the University of Zurich (Switzerland) where he worked at the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies. He was before that Assistant Professor at the Swedish Agricultural University, Uppsala (Sweden). His work explores animal sociality, animal linguistics and climate adaptation in boreal environments. A main part of his work leverages his long-term study populations of Siberian jays in Swedish Lapland. He is the PI of the Siberian jay project since 2004 and Director since 2012.

For my PhD project, I am studying the evolution of social behavior among unrelated individuals. I am investigating Siberian Jays in Swedish Lapland as study organisms to conduct behavioral experiments and answer questions about the impact of different levels of interdependence between individuals. As an example, I am interested in the interplay between within-group dynamics and intergroup conflicts. I have previous research experience studying the collective behavior of bumblebees and the population dynamics of Arctic breeding birds, which reflect further areas of my interest. 

I am a PhD student in the department of Integrative Biology, co-advised by Dr. Karl Cottenie (University of Guelph, Canada) and Dr. Michael Griesser. My project seeks to add a touch of ecological reality to microbiome research by investigating the interplay between gut microbiota and social behaviour in wild, group-living Siberian jays.

Prior to my PhD, I completed a MSc’s in experimental evolution, where I used bacteria to investigate the fitness effects of synonymous mutations. I've also worked as a volunteer on ecological monitoring projects in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Looking at gut microbiota in the wild is a way of combining my passions for ecology and microbiology.

When I’m not following birds around in the forest, I can be still found wandering in nature by ski, rock shoe, hiking boot, or paddle.

I aim at investigating the proximate mechanism underlying cooperation between breeders and same sex non-kin non-breeders in Siberian jays (Perisoreus infaustus). I target two candidate hormones that are likely to govern the variability in social behaviour, a nonapeptide hormone (mesotocin) and a steroid hormones (corticosterone). 

I am fascinated by animal behaviour and have a special interest in social behaviour and cognition.

Using comparable methods from developmental psychology and human ethnography, I often compare human and animal (birds, mostly) social behaviour. And, yes, some bird species and humans are similar in some respects.

I am a MSc student from Computer & Information Science Department, advised by Dr. Michael Griesser and Prof. Dr. Bastian Goldlücke. My project aims to achieve automatic individual recognition of Siberian Jays with colored ring identification by using machine learning and image processing techniques.