Welcome

Urs Kalbitzer

Group Leader

University of Konstanz, Germany & Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Germany

I am a behavioral ecologist and in my research I aim to gain a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of environmental factors on animal behavior and fitness. I use quantitative methods to integrate long-term behavioral, life-history, physiological and genetic data from wild primate populations with climate and plant ecological data to gain insights into the effects of changing environments on the behavioral ecology and survival of these threatened species. I have worked on multiple species, including baboons (Papio spp.), white-faced capuchins (Cebus imitator), African green monkeys (Chlorocebus sabaeus) and spider monkeys (Ateles spp.). My current focus is on red colobus (Piliocolobus tephrosceles) in Kibale National Park, Uganda, where I have access to a uniquely broad long-term dataset. I also use computational approaches to investigate and validate quantitative methods and I am expanding this research by developing simulations to explore theoretical ideas about animal-environment interactions at the individual and population levels. My current research projects revolve around three themes: (1) Primate responses to environmental change, (2) Nutritional landscapes, animal behavior, and forest composition, and (3) Primate behavioral evolution.

I am passionate about applying quantitative methods and data analysis in general, and enthusiastic about teaching such methods and scientific workflows to students. I have documented introductions to some of these methods online to make them accessible to any interested student and/or researcher (https://bedatablog.netlify.com – will be soon migrated to this webpage).

Projects

Primate responses to changing environments.

According to the IUCN, about 60% of the world’s ~500 primate species are threatened by extinction, and this is mainly the result of human activity. Environmental changes linked to human activities include climate change, landscape modifications, hunting and other interactions between human and non-human primates.

Nutritional landscapes, animal behavior, and forest composition

Many theories about the ecology and evolution of behavior are centered around food resource distribution but the assessments of such distribution are often extremely coarse, and rely on broad categories, such as fruit versus leaves.

Primate behavioral evolution

Complimentary to my other research, I am investigating the evolution of primate social behavior. My work has resulted in insights into variation in male and female social behavior, hormonal patterns, and genetic polymorphisms among different species of baboons and other primates (Kalbitzer et al.

Female sociability and fitness in primates

In many mammals, including humans, individuals form groups in which social relationships can be highly differentiated (i.e., some individuals form strong relationships, while others only have weak ones). As a result, some individuals are socially better integrated than others, which appears to be beneficial for these individuals.

Male-male competition and tolerance in baboons.

In mammals, the most common male reproductive strategy is to compete intensely over access to receptive females, and males show little interest in cooperating with each other. However, there are exceptions to this pattern and even males of closely related species can greatly differ.

Publications

As of 2023-01-30

Emmanuel A. Opito, Timo Alanko, Urs Kalbitzer, Matti Nummelin, Patrick A. Omeja, Anu Valtonen, Colin A. Chapman (2023). 30 years brings changes to the arthropod community of Kibale National Park, Uganda (paper accepted). Biotropica.

Cite

Urs Kalbitzer, Martin Golooba, Colin A Chapman (2023). Site fidelity and home range shifts in a leaf-eating primate (chapter in press). Movement Ecology of Afrotropical Forest Mammals.

Cite

Mueena Jahan, Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer, Colin A. Chapman, Urs Kalbitzer, Fabian H. Leendertz, Patrick A. Omeja, Dipto Sarkar, Markus Ulrich, Jan F. Gogarten (2023). The Movement of Pathogen Carrying Flies at the Human–Wildlife Interface (accepted). EcoHealth.