Two master theses on the movement behaviour of urban birds in Munich

01.03.2024, Abschlussarbeiten, Bachelor- und Masterarbeiten

Background
Many animals live in cities, but the reasons why they occur in some places and not others are poorly understood. However, such an understanding is necessary to plan cities not only for humans but also for animals. Cities are heterogeneous landscapes composed of various fragmented land covers and urban elements. Some land covers and elements constitute barriers to the movement of species and lower the survival rate, while urban animals use others for nesting and foraging. Data on the movement behaviour of urban animals is rare, but it can help to understand the importance of a connected city for the species’ survival and test the barrier effects of houses or streets for a target species.

We offer two master’s theses to two motivated students to investigate the importance of barriers, disturbance and vegetation on the movement and occurrence of city-dwelling animals. Both master theses consist of observing the movement of several target bird species throughout Munich – the great spotted woodpecker (Buntspent), the common blackbird (Amsel) and the woodpigeon (Ringeltaube). The observations will be made at different locations throughout Munich and additional data will be collected to better understand where birds are moving. The master theses are part of two greater projects looking at how the urban landscape shapes the movement of animals and where animals within a city are likely to occur. The results of this work will contribute to tools and guidelines for animal conservation in cities through the integration of landscape connectivity in urban planning.

The master’s thesis includes the following work steps:
- Literature review on your thesis topic
- Selection of sampling sites
- Fieldwork in Munich
- Digitization of collected data
- Analysis of additional remote sensing data
- Statistical data analysis in R
- Writing 

Requirements
Most important is that you are motivated and interested in the topic. You will be supervised by Lisa Merkens, a PhD student at TUM and Prof. Wolfgang Weisser. We provide a vivid working environment with many Master’s and PhD students with whom you can interact and learn from/together with. We expect that you have some experience with the visual recognition of bird species, but you do not need to be an expert. Prior experience with statistical analyses in R are beneficial. The project results might contribute to a publication based on the outcome and the derived data. One master thesis should start in April or May; the second one should start at latest in June 2024. The thesis can be supervised in German or English.

Kontakt: lisa.merkens[at]tum.de