No relationship between chronotype and timing of breeding when variation in daily activity patterns across the breeding season is taken into account.

There is increasing evidence that individuals are consistent in the timing of their daily activities, and that individual variation in temporal behavior is related to the timing of reproduction. However, it remains unclear whether observed patterns relate to the timing of the onset of activity or whether an early onset of activity extends the time that is available for foraging. This may then again facilitate reproduction.

How to quantify animal activity from radio-frequency identification (RFID) recordings.

Automated animal monitoring via radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology allows efficient and extensive data sampling of individual activity levels and is therefore commonly used for ecological research. However, processing RFID data is still a largely unresolved problem, which potentially leads to inaccurate estimates for behavioral activity. One of the major challenges during data processing is to isolate independent behavioral actions from a set of superfluous, nonindependent detections.

A loss of heterozygosity, a loss in competition? The effects of inbreeding, pre- and postnatal conditions on nestling development.

The early developmental trajectory is affected by genetic and environmental factors that co-depend and interact often in a complex way. In order to distinguish their respective roles, we used canaries () of different genetic backgrounds (inbred and outbred birds). An artificial size hierarchy was created to provoke within-nest competition, manipulating postnatal conditions.