Female and male songbirds sing equally elaborate songs in some species, but in others, females do not sing like males or not at all. How did such pronounced differences in male and female communication evolve?

For a long time, bird song was considered as a typical male trait. But over the last twenty years, research has shown that a lot of female songbirds sing as well. Female scientists turned out to be the key factor in these findings, amongst others from the Institute of Biology Leiden.

What invertebrates are available to feed nestlings in an agricultural landscape of varied complexity?

Does the presence of Ring-necked parakeets negatively influence feeding and feeding behaviour of native bird species on artificial bird feeders and if so, what are possible solutions?

For some time blackbirds have been settling in towns as well as in woods. As a result, town blackbirds have now begun to develop differently from their counterparts in forests. These are the findings of the PhD research carried out by behavioural biologist Erwin Ripmeester who defends his dissertation…

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo

A study in the Behavioral Biology group of Carel ten Cate at the IBL showed that experience-dependent and -independent preferences influence song learning in zebra finches.

The oldest university in the Netherlands was founded on 8 February 1575 in the Pieterskerk in Leiden. This was at the time of the Eighty Years’ War with the uprising of the northern provinces against domination by the Spanish.

We study the link between the acoustic, behavioral and physiological health of birds and prominent pollution factors. We aim to explore causation through experimental studies on detrimental factors like traffic noise, particulate matter and chemical toxins. Our primary target is scientific progress…

How is it possible to play a song that is part of the rituals of other people? How to transpose an idea to the stage while maintaining respect for indigenous communities? Are these performances a way of throwing light on these indigenous communities looking for a strategy of decolonization? How is it…

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh, C.J.M. Musters

Animal Sciences’ contributions to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme include evo-devo research, the evolution of cognitive and behavioural traits, and the evolutionary mechanisms of stress adaptation. This research involves both indoor and outdoor studies.

I think we should go this way. This way! THIS! WAY!! Making yourself heard in a city can be difficult. That is not only the case for humans, but birds seem to be hindered by urban noise as well. Researcher Hans Slabbekoorn of Leiden University already showed that great tits in Leiden communicate differently…

Birds sing to be heard, but how do they cope with increasing noise levels? Which species persist in cities and why? And do they thrive or suffer in the urban soundscape?

In the theme Animal sciences and health research, we work with different species of animals to learn more about fundamental biological processes.

Jinhua Wu defended his thesis on 5 January 2021

Birds around airports are more aggressive and sing as if they have hearing loss. Collaboration between researchers of Manchester Metropolitan University and the Institute of Biology Leiden has led to surprising new findings about the impact of anthropogenic noise on birds around airports. Publication…

IBL-researcher Katharina Riebel, together with international collaborators, published a remarkable finding in Nature Communications on the prevalence of female birdsong.

Can birds - like people- ‘see’ voices and learn how to sing by listening and watching?

The recently published book ‘Avian Cognition’ is the first multi-author book to provide a comprehensive treatment of the cognitive abilities of birds and how they compare to those of other animals. Carel ten Cate, professor of animal behavior at the Institute of Biology, and Susan D. Healy (StAndrews…

Listening to birds and helping science, it is possible. Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) researchers Karan Odom and Katharina Riebel launched a citizen science project to improve the worldwide documentation of female birdsong.

We perform multidisciplinary research at molecular, cellular, and organismal levels of animal biology to increase fundamental understanding of health and disease.

Pigeons, zebra finches and parakeets. Carel ten Cate studied bird sounds. But not just that. Together with linguists from Leiden, he investigated parallels between birdsong and language. On 9 June, his farewell symposium was held to mark the end of his broad career. Well, the end? Carel ten Cate has…

Last week Professor of Animal Behaviour Carel ten Cate was interviewed about intelligent birds, in response to the recent publication of his book 'Avian Cognition' by NPO1.

Population growth, economic expansion and the associated land use caused an increase in the number of bird species facing extinction and a reduction in carbon storage worldwide. These are the findings of an international team of scientists, also from the Leiden University Institute of Environmental…

It may well be that only male zebra finches can sing, but the females are faster at learning to discriminate sounds. Leiden researchers publish their findings in the scientific journal Animal Behaviour.

The experiments described in this thesis employ local lentiviral knockdowns in brain areas of female zebra finches followed by behavioural assays consisting of preference and Go/Nogo tasks.

On average, Dutch breeding birds have become more numerous in the period 1980-2010. The common species have even done better than birds in other European countries. Farmland birds are an exception: they declined sharply both in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe.

To eat or get eaten. It describes the evolutionary race of snakes versus the mammals and birds that prey on these snakes. Muzaffar Ali Khan devoted his PhD to investigating the molecular mechanisms play of the evolutionary arms race, and has his promotion 16 February. What makes mammals and birds successful…

Over 80 speakers from around 15 different countries came together to discuss the latest developments in multilingualism during the Conference on Multilingualism 2019 (COM2019). This year’s conference was hosted by Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) at Leiden University.

As the year draws to a close, many music lovers are looking forward to the Top 2000. How high is their favourite song and who is number one? But the list is often very predictable and the same songs are always in the top 10. According to neuropsychologist and associate professor Rebecca Schaefer, it’s…

Comparison between babies and song-birds when they are learning a non-existent language—a study of this kind has never been tried before. But this is what Claartje Levelt, Carel ten Cate (Leiden University) and Jelle Zuidema (University of Amsterdam) are attempting.

Anar Ahmadov is one of eleven Leiden University researchers that have been awarded a Vidi grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The 800.000 euro grant enables Ahmadov to start his own research group on western institutions, finding answers to the question: do they promote or preclude democracy?

‘I did not expect to receive the grant, but it will make an amazing research possible,’ Michelle Spierings says. The researcher of the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) got awarded a Veni-grant of the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

A central and much debated topic in the study of language acquisition concerns the nature of the learning mechanisms that are required. Are the computational and learning mechanisms that guide learning about language structure special and specific to language or humans?

How can the importance of the image in late medieval spirituality be understood in the context of the love mysticism inspired by the imagery of the Song of Songs?

Hans Slabbekoorn is specialised in animal sounds. On 1 July, he was appointed professor of Acoustic ecology and behaviour. A great honour, according to the new professor. ‘This job never gets boring, whether I am investigating the urban jungle or marine noise.’

Anthropogenic noise negatively affects wildlife in a wide range of taxonomic groups.

PhD Defence

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

As we are working very hard to make our University more green, it is of upmost importance that you join us in our battle and start increasing the local biodiversity from your own house! Every bit will help, it is beneficial for you own mental health and most importantly it is fun! We have created this…

What kinds of vocal music were not typically transmitted in written musical notation? Can specific ‘lost’ song forms - siciliane, giustiniane, le Grechesche, gli stili “regionali“ nel canto del quattrocento - be more precisely identified than they have been until now, both in musicological research…

The key characteristic of active matter is the motion of an emergent collection (such as a flock of birds), which is driven by the consumption of energy by its active components (i.e. individual birds).