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Introduction
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May 2014 - present
May 2010 - May 2014
September 2003 - December 2008
Publications
Publications (207)
Consequences conferred at a distance
Migratory animals have adapted to life in multiple, sometimes very different environments. Thus, they may show particularly complex responses as climates rapidly change. Van Gils et al. show that body size in red knot birds has been decreasing as their Arctic breeding ground warms (see the Perspective by Wikelsk...
Models relating intake rate to food abundance and competitor density (generalized functional response models) can predict forager distributions and movements between patches, but we lack understanding of how distributions and small‐scale movements by the foragers themselves affect intake rates.
Using a state‐of‐the‐art approach based on continuous‐...
The wealth of field studies using stable isotopes to make inferences about animal diets require controlled validation experiments to make proper interpretations. Despite several pleas in the literature for such experiments, validation studies are still lagging behind, notably in consumers dwelling in chemosynthesis-based ecosystems. In this paper w...
Recent insights suggest that predators should include (mildly) toxic prey when non-toxic food is scarce. However, the assumption that toxic prey is energetically as profitable as non-toxic prey misses the possibility that non-toxic prey have other ways to avoid being eaten, such as the formation of an indigestible armature. In that case, predators...
Effects of predation may cascade down the food web. By alleviating interspecific competition among prey, predators may promote biodiversity, but the precise mechanisms of how predators alter competition have remained elusive. Here we report on a predator-exclosure experiment carried out in a tropical intertidal ecosystem, providing evidence for a t...
Here we aim to complement existing data with the first dietary approximation using DNA metabarcoding on faecal samples from chicks of several shorebird species breeding in Greenland: Dunlin Calidris alpina, Red Knot Calidris canutus, Red-necked Phalarope Phalaropus lobatus, Red Phalarope Phalaropus fulicarius, Ringed Plover Charadrius hiaticula and...
With rapid climate change over the past decades, organisms living in seasonal environments are suggested to increasingly face trophic mismatches: the disruption of synchrony between different trophic levels due to a different phenological response to increasing temperatures. Strong effects of mismatches are especially expected in the Arctic region,...
Shifts in phenology are among the key responses of organisms to climate change. When rates of phenological change differ between interacting species they may result in phenological asynchrony. Studies have found conflicting patterns concerning the direction and magnitude of changes in synchrony, which have been attributed to biological factors. A h...
Birds often have to choose their nest site location along a food safety axis, balancing nest predation danger with the food requirements of themselves and their offspring. This is probably most important for precocial species, such as most shorebirds, in which both chicks and parents need access to food resources in the surroundings of the nest, at...
Triggered by the disappearance of the bivalve‐eating red knots Calidris canutus from feeding areas in the western Dutch Wadden Sea after these intertidal flats were exposed to the harvesting of edible cockles Cerastoderma edule by shallow‐draft suction dredging vessels, the admission of such dredging practices in this state nature monument, RAMSAR‐...
Loss and/or deterioration of refuelling habitats have caused population declines in many migratory bird species but whether this results from unequal mortality among individuals varying in migration traits remains to be shown.
Based on 13 years of body mass and size data of great knots (Calidris tenuirostris) at a stopover site of the Yellow Sea, c...
Arthropods play a crucial role in terrestrial ecosystems, for instance in mediating energy fluxes and in forming the food base for many organisms. To better understand their functional role in such ecosystem processes, monitoring of trends in arthropod biomass is essential. Obtaining direct measurements of the body mass of individual specimens is l...
In ecology, stable‐isotope ratios are widely used to determine diets of organisms and reconstruct food webs. This is usually done by analyzing the stable‐isotope ratios of nitrogen (δ¹⁵N), which increase with increasing trophic level, and those of carbon (δ¹³C), which correlate with the δ¹³C value of food source(s) and generally differ between terr...
Arthropods play an essential role in terrestrial ecosystems, not least by forming the food base for insectivorous birds. To better understand such trophic interactions, it is essential to monitor seasonal trajectories in arthropod biomass. Because obtaining direct measurements of the body mass of individual specimens is laborious, these data are of...
With rapid climatic changes over the past decades, organisms living in seasonal environments are suggested to increasingly face trophic mismatches: the disruption of synchrony between different trophic levels due to a different phenological response to increasing temperatures. Strong effects of mismatches are especially expected in the Arctic regio...
A forager’s energy intake rate is usually constrained by a combination of handling time, encounter rate and digestion rate. On top of that, food intake may be constrained when a forager can only process a maximum amount of certain toxic compounds. The latter constraint is well described for herbivores with a limited tolerance to plant secondary met...
Oratie uitgesproken door Prof.dr. Jan A. van Gils op 21 september 2021 bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van bijzonder hoogleraar Global Change Ecology of Migrant Shorebirds aan Faculty of Science and Engineering Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Verkleining, vervorming, verplaatsing, vervrouwelijking en vermindering: wat klimaatverandering allemaal doet b...
Climate warming in the Arctic has led to warmer and earlier springs, and as a result, many food resources for migratory animals become available earlier in the season, as well as become distributed further northwards. To optimally profit from these resources, migratory animals are expected to arrive earlier in the Arctic, as well as shift their own...
In seasonal environments subject to climate change, organisms typically show phenological changes. As these changes are usually stronger in organisms at lower trophic levels than those at higher trophic levels, mismatches between consumers and their prey may occur during the consumers’ reproduction period. While in some species a trophic mismatch i...
Significance
Knowledge of host–symbiont biogeography is critical to understanding fundamental aspects of symbiosis such as host–symbiont specificity. Marine animals typically acquire their symbionts from the environment, a strategy that enables the host to associate with symbionts that are well-suited to local conditions. In contrast, we discovered...
Central place foragers often segregate in space, even without signs of direct agonistic interactions. Using parsimonious individual-based simulations, we show that for species with spatial cognitive abilities, individual-level memory of resource availability can be sufficient to cause spatial segregation in the foraging ranges of colonial animals....
• Many organisms reproduce in seasonal environments, where selection on timing of reproduction is particularly strong as consumers need to synchronize reproduction with the peaked occurrence of their food. When a consumer species changes its phenology at a slower rate than its resources, this may induce a trophic mismatch, that is, offspring growin...
In the above mentioned publication, incorrect values for P. segnis are shown on the right hand side of Fig. 4. The correct version of Fig. 4 and its caption is published here.
Brachyuran crabs are an important ecological and economical, yet often unstudied aspect of intertidal mudflats of the Arabian Peninsula. Here we provide baseline density estimates of crabs at the relatively pristine intertidal mudflats of Barr Al Hikman (Sultanate of Oman) and provide information on their life cycle and habitat preference. Across t...
Especially in birds, it is widely found that the size of individual prey items follows the size of the instruments of prey capture, handling and processing, i.e. bill size. In fact, this is the natural history basis of major discoveries on adaptative evolution in the face of changing food resources. In some birds, e.g. the molluscivore shorebirds i...
Kubelka et al . (Reports, 9 November 2018, p. 680) claim that climate change has disrupted patterns of nest predation in shorebirds. They report that predation rates have increased since the 1950s, especially in the Arctic. We describe methodological problems with their analyses and argue that there is no solid statistical support for their claims.
Kubelka et al. (Science, 9 November 2018, p. 680-683) claim that climate change has disrupted patterns of nest predation in shorebirds. They report that predation rates have increased since the 1950s, especially in the Arctic. We describe methodological problems with their analyses and argue that there is no solid statistical support for their clai...
Organisms cope with environmental stressors by behavioral, morphological, and physiological adjustments. Documentation of such adjustments in the wild provides information on the response space in nature and the extent to which behavioral and bodily adjustments lead to appropriate performance effects. Here we studied the morphological and digestive...
In the original publication of this article [1], the majority