Behavioural
Ecology Group




Marc Naguib



Professor in Behavioural Ecology

Director Wageningen Institute of Animal Sciences (WIAS Graduate School)


Research interests

My research covers a range of different topics on the behavioural mechanisms, their development, function and evolution, mainly using birds as model organisms. My main research interest has been on animal vocal communication and territoriality, including the spatial and social organisation of animal societies, with a focus on songbirds as model system. For most of my research I have been using nightingales, great tits and zebra finches as model species. A current focus is on social organisation of wild zebra finches in Australia. I am also interested in conservation behaviour and human wildlife conflicts, topics on which we run two large inter-disciplinary projects (Eco2 and CONNECT projects).


Within my research lines, we cover topics such as:

  • animal communication
  • bioacoustics
  • birdsong
  • movement ecology (radio-tracking)
  • spatial and territorial behaviour
  • animal cognition
  • social interactions and social organisation
  • animal personality
  • conservation behaviour (see our free online course (MOOC))

Currently, the projects that I am working on most are:



Throughout my reaearch career, I have been particularly interested in acoustic communication and the social organization of animal societies, specifically in animal movements (automated radio-tracking) in relation to long distance signalling and territorial behaviour.


I have applied this previously in long-term projects on nightingales (vocal interactions and territorial behaviour, communication networks) and great tits (personality and communication, spatial behavour) as well as on other species like Carolina wrens and chaffinches (environmental acoustics, sound degradation and distance assessment) as well as white-browed sparrow weavers (cooperative breeding and dispersal, with Andy Young, Exeter). Furthermore, I have been using zebra finches in the lab over several years to address a range of questions on short and long term behavioural-, fitness-, life history-, and trans-generational effects of nutritional stress experienced during early development.


My current main project is on communication and social organisation in zebra finches in the wild (with Simon Griffith, Macquarie University Sydney) using novel solar-powered automated tracking technologies.


Moreover I coordinate a large interdisciplinary project (Eco2) on human-wildlife interactions and conservation behaviour in Egypt, funded by the WUR-INREF program (watch Eco2 movie) and since 2024 we are involved in a large project on human-wildlife conflicts around protected areas in Rwanda (CONNECT project funded by WUR-Global Sustainability program).


Students, feel free to contact me for thesis opportunities within the research lines (also see projects below) or if you have other ideas for a thesis project.



Short CV

Professor and chairholder Behavioural Ecology Group at Wageningen University. Director of WIAS graduate school (Wageningen Institute of Animal Science) and council member of the Lucie Burgers Foundation. From 2008 to 2011 senior researcher and head of the Animal Personality Group at the Department of Animal Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW). In 2010 and 2016 visiting professor at the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre, France. Previous positions: 2000-2008 Department of Animal Behaviour, University Bielefeld (Group Fritz Trillmich), Germany, promoted to the rank of professor in 2007. From 1995 to 1999 researcher in Animal Behaviour at the Freie Universität Berlin (Group Dietmar Todt). PhD from 1992-1995 at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, USA (PhD in 1995, Group R. Haven Wiley in cooperation with Steve Nowicki, Duke University, NC). Studied Biology at the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany (1984-1991 Diplom in Biology; group Dietmar Todt). Published over 140 publications and acquired over 4 Mio Euro in research grants.


Previously: President of the Netherlands Society for Behavioural Biology (NVG, 2020-2025), Wageningen Academic Board member from 2019-2022, board member of the WIAS (Wageningen Institute of Animal Sciences) graduate school from 2017-2020, chair library committee Animal Science Department, Wageningen (2018-2021), board member of the Expat Center (now Welcome Center) Wageningen (2017-2020), member of the KNAW-DEC (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science-Animal Experimentation Committee; 2016-2021), council member (2004-2010) and grants secretary (2006-2010) of the Association of the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB), Secretary of the Ethologische Gesellschaft (2007-2010). Editor of journal Animal Behaviour (2004-2006), of the Animal Communication Section for the Encyclopedia in Language and Linguistics 2 (2003), Journal of Ornithology (2014-2017), Behavioral Ecology (2018-2021), and Editor (2003-2021) and Executive Editor (2013-2021) of Advances in the Study of Behaviour.



Contact Marc

Research projects



Communication and resilience in an unpredictable world
(Zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata)


In this ecological field research we study the social organization and communication in wild zebra finches who breed under varying and unpredictable conditions. Zebra finches are the best-studied avian model organism in the lab for behaviour, mate choice, life history decisions, and the function of male song. Yet, there is very little information about theoir multi-level society social organization and communication processes. We track zebra finches using state of the art automated solar powered radio tracking. . The project is run at Fowlers Gap Arid Zone research station in Australia. Cooperating partner: Simon Griffith (Macquarie University, Sydney, AUS);

BHE staff: Marc Naguib, Hugo Loning, Chris Tyson, Lysanne Snijders,

PhD student: Noelle Tschirren

more

ECO2 Project


This INREF programme, ECO2 (see new movie here), investigates, analyses, and tests key ideas for integrating ecology and socio-economics and the possibilities for convivial conservation using distinct cases in Egypt, a country where Anthropocene pressures have become extreme in many places. Egypt, as is well known, completely depends on one major resource, the River Nile, but intensifying land-use change and other anthropogenic pressures render the possibilities for long-term sustainable forms of development and conservation increasingly problematic. By combining the expertise from different disciplines across the different natural and social sciences, ECO2 will deliver new knowledge based on primary research and use this to investigate ideas related to different convivial conservation and development trajectories in three important cases along the Nile and its wetlands


more

Communication and social networks in songbirds


These are long term projects to understand the function of vocal signalling (male song) in territorial, spatial and mating decisions. Our aim is to unravel principles of decision-making in these contexts and to determine social and fitness consequences of behavioural traits and strategies. These projects were funded by 3 subsequent German research council (DFG) grants and 3 subsequent NWO ALW open competition grants to MN.

The current focus of this long-term research line is on zebra finches in the wild (zebra finch project) in the Australian Outbacks where we apply various acoustic techniques and automated radio-tracking to understand the relation between communication and social organization as adaptation to an unpredictable environment.


more

Professor Marc Naguib



Behaviour Ecology Group
Department of Animal Sciences
Wageningen University
Zodiac building
Room B0036
marc.naguib@wur.nl
+31 (0) 317483860


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