Past Student Profile

Jeroen MindermanJeroen Minderman

Tel: 0191 222 5952
Email: Jeroen.minderman@newcastle.ac.uk
Website: http://www.students.ncl.ac.uk/jeroen.minderman/
Address: School of Biology
Ridley Building
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU

Research Interests

Before coming to Newcastle, I did my undergraduate and masters’ degree in ecology at the Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands (1999-2005). I worked a lot in the Dutch Wadden Sea area and still love wading bird ecology. I love ecology and ornithology, being outside, and spend most of my free time training as a BTO bird ringer and on photography. Apart from behavioural syndromes and personality, I am interested in predator-prey dynamics, flocking and the group size effect, behaviourally mediated indirect effects, resource and interference competition and behavioural-based population modelling.

Project

The ecological consequences of behavioural syndromes or “personality”

Recent research in individual behaviour that is consistent and correlated across contexts and situations, suggests that animals have behavioural syndromes or ‘personality’. Individuals with distinct suites of correlated behaviours have been identified in a range of taxa, including mammals, fish, cephalopods, crustaceans and birds. Although the existence of behavioural syndromes can be interesting in itself, analysis of their relevance in an ecological and evolutionary context is vital because they are expected to constrain the flexibility of individuals to adapt to their environment.

The overall aim of my project is to study the occurrence and relevance of behavioural syndromes in wild birds, and investigate their relevance to individual ecology and life-histories. I use starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) as my main study species, and attempt to combine observations from field studies with controlled aviary experiments. In collaboration with Dr Peter Evans and Dr Jane Reid. I use a breeding population of Starlings on Fair Isle, Shetland, as my field study system.

More specifically, my project aims to:

  • Develop methods to investigate behavioural syndromes in the field
  • Investigate whether behavioural syndromes are measurable in particular populations in the field
  • Investigate whether such syndromes are related to ecological parameters, such as flocking– and anti-predatory behaviour, ranging behaviour and survival
  • Investigate whether populations differ in the expression of particular personality traits and/or the relationship between these traits to ecological parameters.

Publications

  • Cresswell, W., Lind, J., Quinn, J.L., Minderman, J. & Whitfield, D.P. (2007) Ringing or colour-banding does not increase predation mortality in redshanks Tringa tetanus. Journal of Avian Biology, 38, 309-316.
  • Minderman, J., Lind, J. & Cresswell, W. (2006) Behaviourally mediated indirect effects: interference competition increases predation mortality in foraging redshanks. Journal of Animal Ecology, 75, 713-723.