Off to a flying start

Driven by curiosity Marwa Kavelaars tries to better understand the phenomenon of parental care in the animal world. For her research, Marwa is therefore often to be found in the ports of Zeebrugge and Vlissingen, where she studies the breeding behavior of the lesser black-backed gull, with a specific focus on the cooperation between the parents in the care of their chicks. For this purpose, traditional behavioral observations are combined with a modern approach in which GPS loggers are placed on the seagull parents that keep track of where they go and what they do there. In this way, Marwa maps out how seagull parents divide tasks such as brood care and food supply and which factors influence their reproductive success.