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Year of election: | 2014 |
Section: | Organismic and Evolutionary Biology |
City: | Radolfzell |
Country: | Germany |
Martin Wikelski is Professor for Ornithology at the University of Konstanz and Director at the Max-Planck Institute for Ornithology at Radolfzell/Lake Constance. Together with his colleagues and staff, he investigates general biological and ecological laws governing animal migrations in the wild. Data from wild animals equipped with biologgers are recorded and analyzed in the global data base ‘Movebank’. The results will also inform us how organisms use their immune setup in ecological contexts and show how animals deal with diseases, climate change and anthropological alterations in their natural habitats.
The data will prominently help to conserve the globally threatened phenomenon of animal migrations. Wikelski also investigates whether animals can serve as an intelligent distributed sensor network, e.g., to predict environmental changes and events such as hurricanes or earth quakes.