SPI-Birds

Antica Culina
Antica’s expertise covers evolutionary ecology of bonding, life-history trade offs, evidence synthesis, and data and code standards. She strives to apply her knowledge of different modelling approaches to inform wildlife conservation decisions. She is one of the pioneers in studying and promoting Open Science practices in ecological and evolutionary research.

Antica has worked on a variety of free-living animal populations, but the majority of her work has been based on long-term studies of great tits, including the project she currently leads on the stability of bonds between breeding partners. Within this project, she has initiated SPI-Birds Network and Database. She has finished undergrad degree in Ecology, worked on bird conservation projects in Croatia (NGO BIOM) before moving to the Oxford University for her PhD.

Antica acts as Scientific Advisor to Open Knowledge Maps and Go FAIR Implementation Network. More info here: https://nioo.knaw.nl/en/employees/antica-culina.

Marcel E. Visser
Marcel is the head of the Animal Ecology Department at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) and he is widely recognized as a world-leading expert on the ecological and evolutionary impact of anthropogenic environmental changes. His pioneering research on how climate change disrupts natural systems used long-term studies on wild species. The work he led on how climate change leads to phenological mismatches within food chains has turned his model species, the great tit, into the poster child for climate change impact. His work on wild long-term populations is complemented with studies in aviaries, and by genomic work, among which the sequencing of the great tit genome.

Marcel combines fieldwork, aviary work and molecular techniques in single projects, for instance by using genomic selection to create selection lines for timing of reproduction in great tit, and then use these lines to look at epigenetic regulation of gene expression as well as to measure fitness consequences of timing in the wild. He is managing the four long-term study populations of hole-nesting species that have ran at the NIOO from 1955 onwards.

Marcel has been awarded a NWO-VICI and an ERC Advanced grant, and has been elected as a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW). He is co-founder and inaugural president of the Netherlands Society for Evolutionary Biology (NLSEB). More info here: https://nioo.knaw.nl/en/employees/marcel-visser.

Sandra Bouwhuis
"I am an evolutionary ecologist with a specific interest in the causes and consequences of within-individual change in life-history traits and between-individual variation in life-history strategies. I mostly conduct analyses on long- term individual-based datasets collected in wild populations, and have so far had the pleasure to work on great tits (Parus major), pre- industrial humans (Homo sapiens) and common terns (Sterna hirundo)."

You can find more information about Sandra's current research interests here.

Josefa Bleu
"I am an assistant professor at the University of Strasbourg in the Hubert Curien Pluridisciplinary Institute. My research lies at the interface between evolutionary ecology, behavioural ecology and eco-physiology. I am interested in the effects of the biotic and abiotic environment on the life-history traits, the physiology and phenotype of the organisms. I am working in the field (monitoring of great tits populations in and around Strasbourg) and also in the lab (model species: zebra finches)."

You can find more information here.

Malcolm D. Burgess
Malcolm is a Principal Conservation Scientist at the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, where he has mostly worked in the UK and western Africa investigating the causes of decline and migration behaviour of Afro-Palaearctic migrant birds. He has also developed frameworks for spatial conservation prioritization, and recently moved into research related to ground-nesting birds and predation. Malcolm has set up and runs PiedFly.Net, a citizen science project that coordinates hole-nestling bird and phenology monitoring at 50 sites across the UK, most in southwest England, and curates historic datasets.

Malcolm is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, where he conducts collaborative research centred on a 65 year hole-nesting bird dataset at East Dartmoor (UK), which he has been involved with since 1998, and took over this nest box study in 2007. This data is largely used collaboratively with research groups across Europe working on climate change, migration, population dynamics, genetics and blood parasites.

Andrey Bushuev

Anne Charmantier
Anne is an evolutionary ecologist holding a senior CNRS position (eq. Prof) in the Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE, Montpellier, France). Her main research interests are focused on understanding the mechanisms involved in the evolution of adaptive traits, especially in a context of rapid anthropogenic changes. Since 2007, she is managing a long-term database initiated in 1976 by Jacques Blondel, which includes data (and samples) on blue tits in Corsica and mainland France, and great tits in urban and forest areas of the South of France. This data contributes to her research on local adaptation, plasticity, senescence, ecological genomics and sexual selection. She has particularly pioneered quantitative genetic approaches in wild populations, to study adaptive and non-adaptive responses to climate change and urbanisation. 

Anne is a member of the scientific councils for the European Society of Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) and the Fondation pour la Recherche sur la Biodiversité (FRB), involved in the French Women & Science Society, and is an Associate Editor for Evolution Letters.

Ella Cole

Erik Matthysen​​​​​​​Erik is Professor in Evolutionary Ecology at the University of Antwerp, where he teaches courses related to ecology, behaviour, evolution and conservation, as well as ornithology. Hole-nesting birds have been the major study system throughout his career. His first projects were on territoriality and population dynamics in Eurasian Nuthatches, culminating in a PhD in 1988 as well as a monograph published in 1998.

In 1994 he took over the ongoing nestbox study on Great and Blue Tits in Belgium started by André Dhondt, with two main study areas: the Peerdsbos site (running since 1979) and the fragmented Boshoek area (since 1994). These populations have been and are still studied for questions related to dispersal, personality, habitat fragmentation, host-parasite interactions and climate change. The data have been used in many collaborative studies with colleagues all over Europe.

Other bird-related projects in the lab have dealt with conservation, sociality and population dynamics of forest birds in Kenya and Bolivia, and invasion biology of parakeets in Belgium. He has been active in the EOU and IOU as council member and scientific chair of conferences, and has participated in all seven hole-breeding passerine meetings organised since 1985.

Learn more about Erik’s work here www.uantwerpen.be/erik-matthysen

Adele Mennerat​​​​​​​
Adele is an evolutionary ecologist with broad interests within behaviour and life history evolution. Her research mostly focuses on disease ecology and evolution in wild and domestic animal populations, in the context of a rapidly changing world. After a first period in Bergen as a researcher, she joined the EGI at Oxford University as a Marie Curie fellow. During this time she became a single carer for her children, aged one and three at the time - a challenging period. After a few years as Associate professor in Amiens, France, she joined Bergen once more, where she established in 2017 a monitored population of hole-nesting birds. She currently leads a project on anthropogenic parasite evolution, in addition to engaging in outreach, including exhibitions at the Natural History Museum in Bergen.

More information on Adele’s work here: https://www.uib.no/en/persons/Adele.Mennerat

Bernt-Erik Sæther

Marta Szulkin​​​​​​​
​​​​​​​Marta is an urban evolutionary ecologist and associate professor at the Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw, Poland. She holds a PhD in Zoology from the University of Oxford, and worked at the University of Oxford as Magdalen College Research Fellow (JRF) and in Montpellier (CEFE CNRS) as Marie Curie Fellow before starting the Wild Urban Evolution & Ecology Lab at the University of Warsaw in 2015. While much of her work originally focused on long-term datasets of wild passerines in natural habitats (inbreeding in Oxford, population genomics in CEFE CNRS), she is currently mostly focusing on evolution and ecology in cities.

Marta started a prospectively long-term study of wild passerines (blue tits and great tits) in a gradient of urbanisation in 2016, and is also involved in large-scale projects on the impact of urbanisation on ecological and evolutionary dynamics globally (see NSF urbanecoevo.net). She is the editor and co-author of Urban Evolutionary Biology (Szulkin, Munshi-South & Charmantier eds, Oxford University Press, 2020).

Link to website: http://leem.cent.uw.edu.pl/

Coordinators
Antica Culina - Antica’s expertise covers evolutionary ecology of bonding, life-history trade offs, evidence synthesis, and data and code standards. She strives to apply her knowledge of different modelling approaches to inform wildlife conservation decisions. She is one of the pioneers in studying and promoting Open Science practices in ecological and evolutionary research.

Antica has worked on a variety of free-living animal populations, but the majority of her work has been based on long-term studies of great tits, including the project she currently leads on the stability of bonds between breeding partners. Within this project, she has initiated SPI-Birds Network and Database. She has finished undergrad degree in Ecology, worked on bird conservation projects in Croatia (NGO BIOM) before moving to the Oxford University for her PhD. Antica acts as Scientific Advisor to Open Knowledge Maps and Go FAIR Implementation Network. More info here: https://nioo.knaw.nl/en/employees/antica-culina

Developers
Liam D. Bailey - Liam is the head of developers team, and he coordinates all the activities related to converting various long-term individual based datasets into a standard format. Liam’s scientific interest lie in combining his biological knowledge and skills as a data scientist to understand the ecological impacts of climate change using long-term individual based data. In his current work, he is using agent (individual) based modelling to understand the complex social system of spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta).

Find out more at https://liamdbailey.com/

Stefan J.G. Vriend - Stefan is a quantitative population ecologist interested in open science, data standards, and developing statistical models to study eco-evolutionary processes across space and time. Formerly a PhD student at the Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics in Trondheim, Norway, he recently joined the Department of Animal Ecology at NIOO-KNAW as a postdoc.

At SPI-Birds, Stefan is part of the developers team and particularly involved in creating, improving and expanding the quality checks that are run on pipeline outputs. In this work, he cooperates closely with the pipeline developers to ensure that pipelines, quality checks and quality check reports are neatly aligned. Currently, his efforts have moved towards pipeline development, and updating the standard protocol to accommodate the wider pool of species and study systems that are now part of SPI-Birds.

Chris Tyson

Design
Szymon Drobniak - Evolutionary biologist working at the Jagiellonian University in Poland and UNSW in Sydney. He specialises in quantitative genetics, behavioural ecology, research synthesis using meta-analysis and comparative studies, and biostatistics. He is also a writer and graphic designer. In his artistic work he focuses on information architecture, science illustration, and bridging gaps between art and science. See his artistic profiles here and here.

Outreach
Antica Culina
Stefan Vriend

Former team members
Eduardo Santos (coordinator South America)
Zuzana Zajkova (developer)
Chloé Nater (developer)

Austria

• Sabine Hille, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna

Belgium

• Erik Matthysen & Frank Adriaensen, University of Antwerp
• Marcel Eens, University of Antwerp
• Wendt Müller, Arne Iserbyt, University of Antwerp

Canada/USA

• Nathaniel T. Wheelwright & Patricia Jones, Bowdoin Scientific Station, Kent Island, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME 04011 USA

Czech Republic

• Miloš Krist, Palacky University in Olomouc
• Peter Adamik, Palacky University in Olomouc

Estonia

• Agu Leivits, Environmental Board
• Raivo Mänd, Vallo Tilgar, Marko Mägi and Jaanis Lodjak, University of Tartu

Finland

• Tapio Eeva, University of Turku
• Markku Orell, Seppo Rytkonen & Emma Vatka, University of Oulu

France

• Anne Charmantier, Samuel Caro, Claire Doutrelant, Arnaud Grégoire, Marcel Lambrechts, Céline Teplitksy, Denis Réale, CEFE-CNR & UQAM
• Blandine Doligez, LBBE-CNRS
• Sylvie Massemin & Josefa Bleu Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien
• Olivier Gilg & Loïc Bollache,  Université de Bourgogne Franche Comté

Germany

• Bart Kempenaers, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology
• Michaela Hau, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology
• Niels Dingemanse & Alexia Mouchet, LMU Munich
• Benedikt Holtmann, LMU Munich
• Michael Griesser, University of Konstanz

Hungary

• János Török & Gergely Hegyi, Eötvös Loránd University
• Gábor Seress & András Liker, University of Pannonia

Italy

• Camillo Cusimano, Bruno Massa & Daniela Campobello, Stazione Ornitologica, Palermo

Ireland

• John Quinn, University College Cork

Israel

• Aya Goldshtein, Tel Aviv University

Japan

• Teru Yuta, Yamashina Institute for Ornithology

Netherlands

• Marcel Visser, NIOO-KNAW
• Kees van Oers, NIOO-KNAW
• Simon Verhulst, University of Groningen
• Christiaan Both, University of Groningen
• Jan Komdeur, Peter Korsten, University of Groningen & Bielefeld University

New Zealand

• Shinichi Nakagawa, Eduardo S. A. Santos, Benedikt Holtmann, Carlos E. Lara, Department of Zoology, University of Otago

Norway

• Adele Mennerat, University of Bergen
• Kjell Einar Erikstad & Tone Kristin Reiertsen, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research
• Tore Slagsvold, Oslo University
• Ole Wiggo Røstad, Norwegian University of Life Sciences

Poland

• Mariusz Cichoń & Szymon Drobniak, Jagiellonian University
• Anna Dubiec & Tomasz Mazgajski, Museum and Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Marta Szulkin, University of Warsaw
• Wojciech Kania, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Sonia Landowska, Ornithological Station (Museum and Institute of Zoology Polish Academy of Sciences)

Portugal

• Ana Cláudia Norte, University of Coimbra, Portugal

Russia

• Alexandr Artemyev, Karelian Research Center
• Anvar Kerimov, Elena Ivankina, Andrey Bushuev, Tatyana IlyinaLomonosov Moscow State University
• Andrey Tolstoguzov, Karelian Research Centre

Spain

• Juan Carlos Senar, Natural Sciences Museum Barcelona
• Jaime Potti, David Canal, Jesús Martínez-Padilla, Carlos Camacho, Estación Biológica de Doñana-CSIC & Pyrenean Institute of Ecology-CSIC
• Alejandro Cantarero, Juan Moreno, National Museum of Natural Sciences Madrid
• Emilio Barba, University of Valencia
• Eduardo Belda, Universitat Politècnica de València
• Silvia Espín, Pablo Sánchez-Virosta, Mario León-Ortega, José Manuel Zamora-Marín , Antonio Zamora-López, Pedro Jiménez, Tapio Eeva, Antonio J. García-Fernández, University of Murcia
• Judith Morales, National Museum of Natural Sciences Madrid

Sweden

• Jan-Åke Nilsson, Lund University
• Caroline Isaksson, Lund University
• Hannah Watson and Johan Nilsson, Lund University, see Tawny Owls project

Turkey

• Can Bilgin & Pinar Kavak, Middle East Technical University

United Kingdom

• Ben Sheldon & Ella Cole, EGI, University of Oxford
• Camilla Hinde, Anglia Ruskin University
• Ian Hartle & Mark Mainwaring, Lancaster University
• Malcolm Burgess, PiedFly.Net, University of Exeter
• Julia Schroeder, Terry Burke, Imperial College London, The University of Sheffield
• Steffen Oppel, RSPB Centre for Conservation Science

United States of America

• Dr. Ian Nisbet, I. C. T. Nisbet & Company

PROJECTS THAT USE DATA FROM MULTIPLE BIRD POPULATIONS

1) sTraitChange – How do trait responses to climate change translate into demographic rates and population dynamics?

The project aims at developing a mechanistic framework that improves our ability to predict climate-induced changes across levels of organization, and generalizations of how species with different life-histories respond to climate change.

2) Pair bonds beyond the breeding season

In this project, Dr. Antica Culina uses data on multiple populations of great tit to study causes and consequences of divorce and pair fidelity.

3) EVOCLIM – Phenotypic selection and population demography in fluctuating environments

In this project, Stefan Vriend and Prof. Bernt-Erik Sæther use data on multiple populations of hole-nesting birds to study the role of environmental stochasticity and density dependence in phenotypic selection and population demography across Europe.

4) Why do tits (Paridae) cover their eggs before incubation? The roles of temperature, nest predators and information parasites

Dr. Olli Loukola uses data on multiple tit populations to investigate variation in great and blue tits' egg covering behaviour across different populations in Europe and variables that may explain the geographical variation.

5) Quantifying intra-specific variation in sensitivity to climate change

This project uses sliding window analyses to study how phenological sensitivity to temperature varies among European populations of great and blue tits. The project then seeks to understand how such variation may be driven by differences in the biotic and abiotic environment experienced by each population.

6) Can we use multivariate autoregressive state-space models to quantify species interactions from time series data?

In this project Dr. Emily Simmonds and Prof. Bob O’Hara use Bayesian hierarchical models, including observation error, to try and quantify the strength of competitive interactions. This work predominantly uses simulated data to test model performance, but also uses multiple populations of great tits and blue tits as a case study illustration.

7) Phenotypic variation along urban gradients

Urbanization affects the mean phenotypes of many wildlife populations, but it is not well known how urbanization affects phenotypic variation, a major driver of eco-evolutionary processes. Urbanization can affect phenotypic variation through several processes and can increase the phenotypic variation in urban populations (e.g., urban great and blue tit populations, see here). This project aims to explore how environmental factors associated with urbanization, stress, and heterogeneity impact phenotypic variation along multiple urban gradients across Europe. 

ARTICLES THAT USE DATA FROM MULTIPLE BIRD POPULATIONS

2016-2020

• Culina, A. et al. (2020). Connected data landscape of long-term ecological studies: the SPI-Birds data hub. Journal of Animal Ecology. Read here
• Radchuk V et al. (2020). Adaptive responses of animals to climate change: not universal, likely insufficient. Nature Communications 10: 3109. Read here
• Møller, A.P. et al. (2020). Interaction of climate change with effects of conspecific and heterospecific density on reproduction. Oikos 129: 1807–1819.
• Loukola, O.J. et al. (2020). The roles of temperature, nest predators and information parasites for geographical variation in egg covering behaviour of tits (Paridae). Journal of Biogeography 47:1482–1493. Read here
• Norte, A.C. et al. (2020). Host dispersal shapes the population structure of a tick-borne bacterial pathogen. Molecular Ecology 29:485–501.
• Ruuskanen, S., Espín, S., Sánchez-Virosta, P., Sarraude, T., Hsu, B-Y., Pajunen, P., Costa, R.A., Eens, M., Hargitai, R., Török, J., Rokka, A., Eeva, T. (2019). Transgenerational endocrine disruption: does elemental pollution affect egg or nestling thyroid hormone levels in a wild songbird? Environmental Pollution 247: 725-735.
• Gamelon M, Vriend SJG, Engen S, Adriaensen F, Dhondt AA, Evans SR, Matthysen E, Sheldon BC, Saether B-E. (2019). Accounting for interspecific competition and age structure in demographic analyses of density dependence improves predictions of fluctuations in population size. Ecology Letters 22: 797-806. Read here
• Jones, W., K. Kulma, S. Bensch, M. Cichoń, A. Kerimov, M. Krist, T. Laaksonen, J. Moreno, P. Munclinger, F. Slater, E. Szöllősi, M.E. Visser & A. Qvarnström (2018). Interspecific transfer of parasites following a range-shift in Ficedula flycatchers. Ecology & Evolution 8: 12183–12192. Read here
• Samplonius, J.M. et al. (2018). Phenological sensitivity to climate change is higher in resident than in migrant bird populations among European cavity breeders Global Change Biology 24:3780–3790. Read here
• Møller, A. et al. (2018). Effects of interspecific coexistence on laying date and clutch size in two closely related species of hole-nesting birds. Journal of Animal Ecology 87: 1738–1748. Read here
• Vaugoyeau M. et al. (2016). Interspecific variation in the relationship between clutch size, laying date and intensity of urbanization in four species of hole-nesting birds. Ecology and Evolution 6:5907–5920. Read here
• Laine, V.N. et al. (2016). Evolutionary signals of selection on cognition from the great tit genome and methylome. Nature Communications 7:10474. Read here
• Lemoine, M. et al. (2016). Low genetic differentiation shaped by environmental factors in a passerine bird: on the potential role of partial migration in gene flow. Biological journal of the Linnean society 118, 668–685

2010-2015

• Stenseth NC, Durant JM, Fowler MS, Matthysen E, Adriaensen F, Jonzén N, Chan K-S, Liu H, De Laet J, Sheldon BC, Visser ME, Dhondt AA. (2015). Testing for effects of climate change on competitive relationships and coexistence between two bird species. Proc Roy Soc B 282: 20141958 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2014.1958. Read here
• Ruuskanen, S., J. Morales, T. Laaksonen, J. Moreno ,R. Mateo, E. Belskii, A. Bushuev, A. Järvinen, A. Kerimov, I. Krams, C. Morosinotto, R. Mänd, M. Orell, A. Qvarnström, F. Slater, H. Siitari V. Tilgar, M.E. Visser, W. Winkel, H. Zang & T. Eeva (2014). Large-scale geographical variation in eggshell heavy metal and calcium content in a passerine bird (Ficedula hypoleuca). Environmental Science and Pollution Research 21: 3304-3317. Read here
• Møller A.P. et al. (2014). Variation in clutch size in relation to nest size in birds. Ecology and Evolution 4:3583–3595. Read here
• Møller A.P. et al. (2014). Clutch-size variation in Western Palaearctic secondary hole-nesting passerine birds in relation to nest box design. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 5:353-362. Read here
• Møller, A. et al. (2013). Assessing the effects of climate on host-parasite interactions: a comparative study of European birds and their parasites. PLoS ONE 8:e82886. Read here
• Burger, C., Belskii, E., Eeva, T., Laaksonen, T., Mägi, M., Mänd, R., Qvarnström, A., Slagsvold, T., Veen, T., Visser, M.E., Wiebe, K.L., Wiley, C., Wright, J., and Both, C. (2012). Climate change, breeding date and nestling diet: how temperature differentially affects seasonal changes in pied flycatcher diet depending on habitat variation. Journal of Animal Ecology 81:926-936. Read here
• Morales, J., S. Ruuskanen, T. Laaksonen, R. Mateo, E. Belskii, T. Eeva, A. Järvinen, A. Kerimov, E. Korpimäki, I. Krams, C. Morosinotto, R. Mänd, M. Orell, A. Qvarnström, H. Siitari, F.M. Slater, V. Tilgar, M.E. Visser, W. Winkel, H. Zang & J. Moreno (2013) Variation in eggshell traits between geographically distant populations of pied flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca J Avian Biol 44: 111–120. Read here
• Mueller J, Korsten P, Hermannstaedter C, Feulner T, Dingemanse N, Matthysen E, van Oers K, van Overveld T, Patrick S, Quinn J, Riemenschneider M, Tinbergen J, Kempenaers B. 2013. Haplotype structure, adaptive history and associations with exporatory behavior of the DRD4 gene region in four great tit (Parus major) populations. Mol Ecol 22: 2797-2809. Read here
• Burger, C., E. Belskii, T. Eeva, T. Laaksonen, M. Mägi, R. Mänd A. Qvarnström, T. Slagsvold, T. Veen, M.E. Visser, K.L. Wiebe, C. Wiley, J. Wright & C. Both 2012 Climate change, breeding date and nestling diet: how temperature differentially affects seasonal changes in pied flycatcher diet depending on habitat variation. J Anim Ecol 81: 926–936. Read here
• Dingemanse N, Bouwman KM, van de Pol M, Van Overveld T, Patrick SC, Matthysen E, Quinn J. 2012. Variation in personality and behavioural plasticity across four populations of the great tit Parus major. J Anim Ecol 81: 116-126. Read here
• Eeva, T. et al. 2011 Geographical trends in the yolk carotenoid composition of the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) Oecologia 165:277–287. Read here
• Ruuskanen, S., H. Siitari, T. Eeva, E. Belskii, A. Järvinen, A. Kerimov, I. Krams, J. Moreno, C. Morosinotto, R. Mänd, E. Möstl, M. Orell, A. Qvarnström, J.-P. Salminen, F. Slater, V. Tilgar, M.E. Visser, W. Winkel, H. Zang & T. Laaksonen 2011 Geographical variation in egg mass and egg content in a Passerine bird PLoS ONE 6: e25360. Read here
• Korsten P, Mueller JC, Hermannstädter C, Bouwman KM, Dingemanse NJ, Drent PJ, Liedvogel M, Matthysen E, van Oers K, van Overveld T, Patrick SC, Quinn JL, Sheldon BC, Tinbergen JM, Kempenaers B. 2010. Association between DRD4 gene polymorphism and personality variation in great tits: a test across four wild populations. Molecular Ecology 19: 832-843. Read here
• Lambrechts, M. M et al.(2010). The design of artificial nestboxes for the study of secondary hole-nesting birds: a review of methodological inconsistencies and potential biases. Acta Ornithologica 45: 1-26.
• Van den Steen, E., Pinxten, R., Covaci, A., Carere., Eeva, T., Heeb, P., Kempenaers, B., Lifjeld, J.T., Massa, B., Norte, A.C., Orell, M., Sanz, J.J., Senar, J.C., Sorace, A., Eens, M. (2010). The use of blue tit eggs as a biomonitoring tool of organohalogenated pollutants in the European environment. Science of the Total Environment 408: 1451-1457.

Prior to 2010

• Van den Steen, E., R. Pinxten, V.L.B. Jaspers, A. Covaci, E. Barba, C. Carere, M. Cichoń, A. Dubiec, T. Eeva, P. Heeb, B. Kempenaers, J.T. Lifjeld, T. Lubjuhn, R. Mänd, B. Massa, J.Å. Nilsson, A.C. Norte, M. Orell, P. Podzemny, J. J. Sanz, J.Carlos, J.J. Soler Senar, A. Sorace, J. Török, M.E. Visser, W. Winkel & M. Eens 2009 Brominated flame retardants and organochlorines in the European environment using great tit eggs as a biomonitoring tool. Environment International 35: 310-317. Read here
• Sæther, B-E, S. Engen, V. Grøtan. W. Fiedler, E. Matthysen, M.E. Visser, J. Wright, A.P. Møller, F. Adriaensen, H. van Balen, D. Balmer, M.C. Mainwaring, R.H. McCleery, M. Pampus & W. Winkel 2007 The extended Moran effect and large-scale synchronous fluctuations in the size of great tit and blue tit populations J. Anim. Ecol. 76: 315-325. Read here
• Both C., J. J. Sanz, A. A. Artemyev, B. Blaauw, R. J. Cowie, A. J. Dekhuijzen, A. Enemar, A. Järvinen, N. E. I. Nyholm, J. Potti, P.-A. Ravussin, B. Silverin, F. M. Slater, L. V. Sokolov, M.E. Visser, W. Winkel, J. Wright & H. Zang 2006. Pied flycatchers travelling from Africa to breed in Europe: differential effects of winter and migration conditions on breeding date. Ardea 94: 511-525. Read here
• Both C., A.V. Artemyev, B. Blaauw, R.J. Cowie, A.J. Dekhuizen, T. Eeva, A. Enemar, L. Gustafsson, E.V. Ivankina, A. Järvinen, N.B. Metcalfe, N.E.I. Nyholm, J. Potti, P.-A. Ravussin, J.J. Sanz, B. Silverin, F.M. Slater, L.V. Sokolov, J. Török, W. Winkel, J. Wright, H. Zang & M.E. Visser 2004. Large-scale geographical variation confirms that climate change causes birds to lay earlier. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 271: 1657-1662.Read here
• Saether BE, Engen S, Møller AP, Visser ME, Matthysen E, Fiedler W,  Lambrechts MM, Becker P, Brommer JE, Dickinson J, du Feu C, Gehlbach FR, Merilä J, Rendell W, Thomson D, Török J. 2005. Time to extinction of bird populations. Ecology 86: 693-700.
• Saether BE, Engen S, Møller AP, Weimerskirch H, Visser ME, Fiedler W, Matthysen E, Lambrechts MM, Freckleton R, Badyaev A, Becker PH, Brommer JE, Bukacinski D, Bukacinska M, Christensen H, Dickinson J, du Feu C, Gehlbach FR, Heg D, Hötker H, Merilä J, Nielsen JT, Rendell W, Thomson D, Török J, Van Hecke P. Life history variation predicts stochastic effects on avian population dynamics. 2004. Amer. Nat. 164: 793-802. Read here
• Sæther B-E, Engen S, Møller AP, Matthysen E, Adriaensen F, Fiedler W, Leivits A, Lambrechts MM, Visser ME, Anker-Nilssen T, Both C, Dhondt AA, McCleery RH, McMeeking J, Potti J, Røstad OW and Thomson D. 2003. Climate variation and regional gradients in population dynamics of two hole nesting passerines. Proc. R.Soc. Lond. B 270: 2397-2404. Read here
• Sæther B.-E., S. Engen, A. P. Møller, E. Matthysen, F. Adriaensen, W. Fiedler, A. Leivits, M. M. Lambrechts, M.E. Visser, T. Anker-Nilssen, B. C., A. Dhondt, R. H. McCleery, J. McMeeking, J. Potti, O. W. Røstad, and D. Thomson 2003 Climate variation and regional gradients in population dynamics of two hole nesting passerines. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 270:2397-2404. Read here
• Visser M.E., F. Adriaensen, J.H. van Balen, J. Blondel, A.A. Dhondt, S. van Dongen, C. du Feu, E.V. Ivankina, A.B. Kerimov, J. de Laet, E. Matthysen, R. McCleery, M. Orell & D.L. Thomson 2003. Variable responses to large-scale climate change in European Parus populations. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 270: 367-372. Read here

LIST OF HOLE NESTING BIRD CONFERENCES

SPI-Birds was initiated at the last such an event, in 2017 in Trondheim. We expect the next conference to take place in 2022 in Oxford.

2017                (30 Oct - 2 Nov) Eighth International Hole-Nesting Birds Conference in Trondheim (Norway) – (no proceedings published  – booklet meeting available). See https://www.ntnu.edu/hnb-conference/programme.

2010                (13-15 July) Sixth International Hole-Nesting Birds Conference in Oxford (UK) – (no proceedings published – program meeting availabe here).

2007                (7-12 September) Hole-using: adaptations and constraints in Bialowezia (Poland) – (no proceedings published  – booklet meeting available). See http://www.hole-breeding-meeting.ap.siedlce.pl/.

2004                (1-5 October) Celebrating 50 breeding seasons in Vlieland (NL) – (no proceedings published – booklet meeting available here).

1991                (22-25 October) Environmental effects on reproductive success in hole-breeding birds in Sempach (CH) - (no proceedings published – program, abstracts and participant list).

1989                (3-8 October) NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Demographical, Physiological, Behavioural and Genetical Aspects of Population Biology of Passerine Birds in Evisa, Corsica (France) – (proceedings published as a book: Blondel, J., Gosler, A., Lebreton, J.-D. & McCleery, R. (eds.). Population Biology of Passerine Birds. An integrated Approach. NATO ASI Series G: Ecological Sciences, Vol. 24; incl participant list, information available here).

1985     Causal and evolutionary aspects of the determination of bird numbers with special reference to hole nesting birds in Wageningen (NL) - (proceedings published in 1987 in Ardea, information available here).