Expertise

Foraging Ecology, Spatial Ecology, Social Information Use, Animal Tracking and Experimental Ecology

CV          

2009-present

PhD student at NIOZ

2007-2009

Researcher at NIOZ designing an optimal sampling design for the SIBES project

2007     

MSc Ecology & Evolution, University of Amsterdam [cum laude]
Specialization Animal Ecology, University of Groningen

2003-2007

Teaching assistant in statistics courses at University of Amsterdam

2006

BSc General Biology, University of Amsterdam

Research Interest

I am fascinated in how social animals gather and use information from the environment and group mates to their benefit, and especially how information use leads to group decisions on where to forage. In my PhD project I focus on this behaviour in red knots (Calidris canutus). This bird is a wader species that forages in large groups, and feeds on molluscs which are hidden in the sediment of tidal mudflats. The extent of the foraging area, the limited time window available for foraging, and their cryptic prey, makes it a likely candidate for using social foraging information to increase foraging efficiency. During my PhD project I hope to unravel the types of social information that red knots use and how they balance this social information with personal information in their group-decision foraging process. I aim to do this by using a modelling, experimental and field observation approach.

Research

Red knot foraging experiment

Here is a movie that shows the experimental setup for a foraging experiment on Red Knots (Calidris canutus islandica). The experiment was designed to study patch departure decisions for red knots foraging in a patchy food environment. Foragers should not stay in a patch too long and waste time searching for that last prey item while other food patches have more to offer. On the other hand, foragers should not depart a patch too soon and leave many prey items behind. Depending on the density and distribution of food, one can calculate the optimal departure decision that foragers should use that maximises intake rate. We want to find out how and if red knots make optimal foraging decisions.

Internships and BSc/MSc projects

None at the moment

Publications

Downloads

Bijleveld, A.I., Folmer, E.O., Piersma, T. (2012). Experimental evidence for cryptic interference among socially foraging shorebirds. Behavioral Ecology, 23, 806-814.

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Bijleveld, A.I., van Gils, J.A., van der Meer, J., Dekinga, A., Kraan, C., van der Veer, H., and Piersma, T. (2012).  Designing a benthic monitoring programme with multiple conflicting objectives. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 3, 526-536. 

PDF / Supporting Information

Bijleveld, A.I., van Gils, J.A., Egas, M., and Piersma, T. (2010). Beyond the information centre hypothesis: communal roosting for information on food, predators, travel companions and mates? Oikos, 119, 277-285.

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Kraan, C., van Gils, J.A., Spaans, B., Dekinga, A., Bijleveld, A.I., van Roomen, M., Kleefstra. R., and Piersma, T. (2009). Landscape-scale experiment demonstrates that Wadden Sea intertidal flats are used to capacity by molluscivore migrant shorebirds. Journal of Animal Ecology, 78, 1259-1268.

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Bijleveld, A.I. and Mullers, R.H.E. (2009). Reproductive effort in biparental care: an experimental study in long-lived Cape gannets. Behavioral Ecology, 20, 736-744.

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