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Dr Rick Bruintjes

My main interests lie in Behavioural Ecology. Specifically, I am interesting in the evolution of cooperative breeding and the impact of anthropogenic (man-made) noise on behaviour and physiology. Many factors could influence animal behaviour and recently, it has been shown that anthropogenic noise is becoming more a more important presence throughout the world, including the underwater world. Having worked for over five year with cooperatively breeding fish, this led us to speculate about the impact of underwater noise on cooperative behaviour. Together with the lab of Dr. Andy Radford, I am currently examining questions concerning the impact of noise on helping behaviour, fry development and oxygen consumption.

As model species I use the tropical cooperatively breeding fish Neolamprologus pulcher aka "the princess of Burundi" and European eels (Anguilla anguilla).


Furthermore I am interested in:

  • physiology (especially stress hormones)
  • aggression
  • group living

Research keywords

  • animal behaviour
  • cooperative breeding
  • helping
  • anthropogenic noise
  • development
  • physiology

Research methods

  • playback experiments behavioural observations

Collaborations

  • Dik Heg (ISPM in Bern - Switzerland)
  • Michael Taborsky (University of Bern - Switzerland)
  • Albert Ros (University of Neuchatel - Switzerland)
  • Nikolaus von Engelhardt (University of Bielefeld - Germany)
  • Marina Louter (University of South Australia - Australia)