🐦🎥 Behind the scenes of our project on how bird feeding affects reproduction and nestling welfare! A big thank you to Denise Zortea for producing this wonderful short video showcasing our research and fieldwork. Watch it here: youtu.be/PkxVKE9bOIA

"To feed or not to feed wild birds" - University of Innsbruck

YouTube video by Denise Zortea | Into the woods

youtu.be

🐋🔬 MSc thesis opportunity in the eWHALE project! Study humpback whale genetic diversity in Skjálfandi Bay using eDNA. Work on lab & bioinformatics (mtDNA D-loop sequencing & molecular sexing) at WasserCluster Lunz & Innsbruck (Austria). Start June 2026. Contact: Bettina.Thalinger@wcl.ac.at

🔬🌙 Once again, the 2026 Lange Nacht der Forschung was a great success! Children especially loved extracting DNA from strawberries, observing arthropods, and playing bird memory games. 🧬🕷️🐦 Thanks to everyone who joined us!

🔬🌙 Meet us today at the Lange Nacht der Forschung on the UIBK Technik campus from 5 pm! Discover applied animal ecology: extract DNA from strawberries, play biodiversity games, see live insects, and learn how we catch & measure birds for research. 🐦🧬🌿 langenachtderforschung.at/station/5405

Was passiert da hinterm Zaun im grünen Dickicht? - #LNF26 Lange Nacht der Forschung

Entdecken Sie auf einem Gartenrundgang Lehr- und Forschungsbereiche aus Zoologie und Biologiedidaktik!

langenachtderforschung.at

🐦 Update on the “To feed or not to feed wild birds” project, which investigates the impact of bird feeding on nestling development and welfare. We’re especially excited as the first tit eggs were found today (30 March)! 🥚✨

@marion-chatelain.bsky.social · 5mo ago

The Easter bunny arrived a bit early this year! 🐰 We just found the first tit eggs of the season: four great tit eggs!! 🥚🥚🥚🥚

🍎Did you Know? Apples depend on honeybees, wildbees and bumblebees for pollination🍏

🐦🏙️ New paper! Beyond “urban dullness”: across 8 urban–rural gradients (Poland), great & blue tits show species- & trait-specific colour shifts. Carotenoid & structural colours respond differently, while melanin traits remain stable www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧀🌿🧬New project cureCHEESES (DaFNE/BMLUK) with VetMedUni & HBLFA Tirol tackles cracking, eye formation & aroma defects in Austrian mountain cheese. Daniela Sint contributes by leading the plant DNA detection module to link cow diet with cheese properties. Exciting collaboration!

New paper on global change impacts on insects, out in GEB🦋🌍 Climate change and urbanisation act synergistically: butterfly declines are stronger under warming in urban environments. Species traits help explain heterogeneous responses. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @ylndmc.bsky.social

🌇🌇🔥🔥🦟🦟🦠🦠

Iberian Group of Urban Ecology@igue-aeet.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Next IGUE #UrbanEcology speaker online talk (on a Monday!!): Martina Ferraguti @ebdonana.bsky.social (@csic.es) We will learn about the role of birds🦜 and mosquitoes🦟 in urban areas🏙️ as diseases reservoirs🦠 Save it to your 📆 drive.google.com/file/d/1oyJv... @csicdivulga.bsky.social #OneHealth

Our project on bird feeding & reproduction is underway! Blue tits, great tits, and even some sparrows are already exploring the nestboxes. We will soon find out if feeding makes gardens more attractive as breeding sites🐣 — exciting insights ahead!

Congrats to Jana Robertson on receiving the Haus des Meeres stipend for her MSc thesis! She’s using eDNA sampling to improve the amphibian species catalogue in Costa Rica — exciting conservation research ahead! 🐸🧬

🐝🌾 Welcome Georg Teischinger to our group! His PhD will use eDNA to study insect networks in Austrian farmland, aiming to design better flowering strips, support wild bees, manage pests, and boost sustainable agriculture while protecting local biodiversity.

📢 Upcoming #EcologySeminar! Dr. Alina Twerski will give a talk about grasslands’ multifunctionality and it's restoration 🌾 📅 Wed 4. Feb at 10:15 AM 📩 DM for webinar link @hsanhalt.bsky.social @agrarunigoe.bsky.social @uni-goettingen.de

🍯🌼 New project funded! A joint initiative on honey DNA pollen analytics brings together the UIBK, the Tyrolean Beekeepers’ Association & Sinsoma, supported by the Land Tirol Innovation Programme. Congrats to Daniela Sint on leading this exciting science–practice collaboration!

🐋New paper! Integrating eDNA sampling into whale-watching tours boosts awareness & willingness to support marine conservation. Survey across Italy, Azores & Iceland shows citizen science + eDNA is a scalable, cost-effective way to engage the public in biodiversity protection. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

🧬 New year, new job! 🧬 I have started a position as Group Leader at #WasserCluster #Lunz (Austria). Stay tuned for job openings at all levels in the TRIDENT group @trident-wcl.bsky.social and collaboration opportunities in upcoming national and international #eDNA Projects.

Happy to welcome Marina Sperling as a new Master’s student! She’ll study how bird feeding affects pathogen prevalence in great & blue tits, opening our work on disease transmission linked to feeding 🐦🦠 www.uibk.ac.at/de/zoology/f...

🌆🐦 New paper! DNA metabarcoding of 370 tit droppings across Innsbruck urban mosaic shows urbanisation drives habitat-linked diet shifts shaped by vegetation & feeders, likely underlying urban–rural differences in reproduction and informing bird-friendly city design. doi.org/10.1016/j.la...

A big farewell to @bettinathal.bsky.social as she leaves our group to start her own Applied Biodiversity Research & Molecular Ecology team at WasserCluster Lunz (@trident-wcl.bsky.social)! 🚀Congrats Bettina — we will miss you, but we can’t wait to follow the great science coming from your team! 🧬🐟

The joint meeting of NSO and GFÖ, September 2026, Odense, Denmark (for which I'm leading the science programming group) is now open for workshop and thematic session proposals! Please share. Details here: nordicsocietyoikos.glueup.com/event/nordic...

Nordic Oikos 2026 | Nordic Society Oikos

Join us for one of Europe’s leading ecological conferences, where scientists, students, and professionals from across the Nordic countries, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland come together to explore t...

nordicsocietyoikos.glueup.com

📢 Upcoming #EcologySeminar! Kyra Zembold will share novel insights from #ProjectKOOPERATIV on how landscape diversity + flower fields togehter effect natural pest control at the landscape scale. 📅 Wed 10.Dec. at 10:15 AM 📩 DM for webinar link @agrarunigoe.bsky.social

🌡️ New publication alert! 🐠🌿 Herbivorous reef fish kept feeding during marine heatwaves—but still lost body mass due to a mismatch between energy intake and demand. As oceans warm, their ability to control invasive algae may be under threat. 🔗 dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.... #ClimateChange #CoralReefs

Outlasting the Heat: Collapse of Herbivorous Fish Control of Invasive Algae During Marine Heatwaves

Marine heatwaves (MHWs) and eutrophication are driving coral reefs toward algal dominance. Herbivorous fishes are thought to help slow this shift by feeding on fast-growing and often invasive, herbiv...

dx.doi.org

📃 New paper out! Our high-frequency sampling in barley fields shows food webs shift rapidly, with connectance, community makeup & predator–prey links changing over weeks and between years. Snapshot sampling can misjudge ecosystem functioning. 🕷️🐞🌾 rdcu.be/eSI9G

The dynamic nature of cereal food webs challenges the suitability of snapshot sampling for assessing ecosystem services

Scientific Reports - The dynamic nature of cereal food webs challenges the suitability of snapshot sampling for assessing ecosystem services

rdcu.be

📃Call for Papers! Scientific Reports: "Burden of air pollution on biodiversity & habitat loss". Submit by 1 Jul 2026. We welcome research on direct & indirect effects of NOx, O₃, PM on individuals, populations, communities & species interactions 😶‍🌫️🐞🌿 Mitigation studies also welcome!

Antonia from our eRNAmaris project visited Le Croisic, France, to collect water samples with our partners at Ifremer 🌊! Sampling over time will reveal how fish eRNA degrades 🐠🧬. Big thanks to the Océarium for making this possible!

Sadly, we have seen a big increase in avian flu cases in the UK - particularly in waterfowl Whilst the risk to the public remains assessed as very low, Government advice is not to touch any visibly sick or dead birds, and to keep pets away Read on for ways to help: 📷Ben Andrew

New book chapter in Advances in Organic Farming! 🌱 Philippe Belliard examines the challenges and solutions of agroecological pest management in organic farming, emphasizing integrated pest management approaches for controlling arthropod pests in crop production. doi.org/10.1079/9781...

Key Challenges and Solutions for Sustainable Pest Management in Organic Farming | Advances in Organic Farming

doi.org

🎉 Exciting news! Our project Frog in the Waterdrop led by Corinna Wallinger received the Peter Petrich Award for Sustainability from Biotop, along with €1000 to support our work on amphibian biodiversity and pathogens. A big thanks to everyone involved! 🐸💧

Developing eDNA approaches to measure biodiversity is a key endeavour in our group! 🌿🧬 Join us tomorrow (Nov 6, 9–11 am, in German) on Zoom to discover three exciting projects on amphibians, forest wildlife & pollinators with C. Wallinger, M. Traugott & S. Gurten : haup-ac-at.zoom.us/j/88638709922