Ben is a PhD Student on the Doctoral Training Programme in Interdisciplinary Bioscience at the University of Oxford. In his PhD project he would like to deepen his interests and experiences in reproductive biology and evolution, already fascinating him as an undergraduate.
During his visit to the kokkonuts’ lab at the end of September Ben was initiating an intriguing side project on two-sex models of monogamous partnerships. We’re keen on hearing more about the progress of your work, Ben!
We are very pleased to welcome two new group members – Andri Manser and Noëlle Ahr just joined kokkonuts!
Andri is about to finish his PhD in animal behaviour, here at the university of Zurich. Well, actually he’s looking deep inside the evolutionary and genetic background that can influence social behaviour. Solid background for his next project with kokkonuts – sexual selection.
From a bit further away, namely from Nancy, France, Noëlle joins us until the end of December. She wishes to expand her knowledge she gained during her masters in modeling in ecological and evolutionary questions. And, maybe, there will pop up some ideas for a PhD thesis?
Finally got there!
After ten long weeks of noise and dust and detours to peoples offices (and the coffee machine) we could celebrate the grand opening of the “Orange Pony Café”!
Why it’s called like that? Have a look …
For the last month or so, Nina and Isobel have been hard at work collecting real empirical data on actual living organisms! At the Tvärminne …
A new professorship at the IEU must be celebrated! Hanna Kokko, Jordi Bascompte and Marta Manser (collectively known as HAJOMA-KOBAMA) did this at the beautifully situated Limnological Station in Kilchberg.
I think, we can say that Spanish, Finnish and Swiss do fit together quite well. Reindeer mousse with sangria, after a little BBQ – who could say no?
Finally, the long-awaited renovation of Kokkonuts’ kitchen started this week!
Well, working next to the construction site is not as calm as a walk in the park, as you can imagine. Some of the groups offices even had to be closed because of asbestos removal in the ceiling (…). But we’re sure the result is worth it and we’re looking forward to see our new, comfortable social space, including a brand new and convenient kitchen – and an orange pony.
We’re very proud to announce that “Reproductive Foragers: Male Spiders Choose Mates by Selecting among Competitive Environments” by Lyndon Alexander Jordan, Hanna Kokko, and Michael Kasumovic (Am Nat 183:638-649) was selected for the Persident’s Award for the “best paper” published in the American Naturalist in 2014.
We especially congratulate allokokkonut Alex Jordan for his amazing work!
And there’s even more good news – Alex just let us know that he will move to Konstanz to work for the Max Planck Insitute, soon. It’s great to have you around!
Joan Maspons just arrived in Zurich – welcome!
Joan is a PhD student from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He’s working on causes and consequences of life history variation in bird species. Joan will join our group for about the next 3 months, fiddling about with the theoretical models he developed for his thesis – and hopefully we can help to improve them to his satisfaction!
We wish Joan an interesting and enjoyable stay in Switzerland!
