Overview of research projects

Project Details:
Dieses Projekt wertet die Anästhesieprotokolle der Klinik für Heimtiere, Reptilien und Vögel aus. Besonderes Augenmerk liegt hierbei auf der Untersuchung und Ursachenforschung von Narkosezwischenfällen. Außerdem auf der Analyse der verwendeten Medikamente, Narkoseregime und postoperativer Versorgung.

Funding: Industry (Feed manifacturing) , 20.347 EUR

Funding: Morris Animal Foundation, 62.488 EUR

Project Details:
We will investigate brain function, brain metabolism and gut microbiome in dogs to distinguish between epileptic seizures and a episodic movement disorder called paroxysmal dyskinesia - commonly mistaken for epileptic seizures - to improve diagnosis and appropriate treatment

Funding: Ministerium für Energie­wende, Klimaschutz, Umwelt und Natur, 308.493 EUR

Project Details:
Common Eider (Somateria mollissima) is classified as endangered in Europe due to continuous The population declines. Meanwhile, its occurrence along the coast of Schleswig-Holstein has potential for conflict with the culturally established and economically important fisheries.
This pilot study will develop approaches to startle common eiders from mussel farms and allow a sustainable coexistence of conventional fisheries in the Baltic habitat and protected species. The main focus is the protection of mussel farms against common eider predation. However, the results can potentially be transferred to fisheries, to prevent unintentional bycatch of birds in gillnets.
Post-mortem examinations of common eiders will be carried out simultaneously, to find out about potential pathological causes for the population decline and gain an insight into the health status of the population. These examinations include bacteriological, virological and parasitological analyses. Furthermore, toxicological analyses will deliver information about environmental pollution load.

Funding: SwAM; Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, 93.700 EUR

Project Details:
The European Atlantic is changing rapidly, and it is essential that neighbouring countries have access to up-to-date robust information on the status of key species and populations so that future monitoring and management can be directed effectively and efficiently to achieve and maintain favourable conservation status of species and good environmental status of European Atlantic waters. The "Small Cetaceans in European Atlantic waters and the North Sea (SCANS)" survey is being planned for summer 2022. The objective of SCANS-IV is to estimate the abundance of cetacean species in shelf and oceanic waters of the European Atlantic through a large-scale multinational aerial and shipboard survey in July 2022. This is the most appropriate survey month because of the higher probability of good sighting conditions, and also to ensure that results are comparable with those from SCANS surveys conducted in 1994, 2005/2007 and 2016 (Hammond et al. 2002, 2013, 2021). Thus, this project will represent the fourth survey in the SCANS series. SCANS-IV will deliver regionally coordinated synoptic surveys in shelf and offshore waters of the European Atlantic. It will generate robust abundance estimates for regularly occurring whale and dolphin species and improve power to detect trends in shelf and offshore species. The outputs of the project are timely for EU Member States obligations for reporting under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD Article 8: due 2024) and the next reporting round under the Habitats Directive (Article 17: 2019 - 2024) (where applicable) and allow OSPAR/HELCOM assessments. The estimates are also needed for impact assessments of offshore industries and fisheries.
The project will be achieved through the successful completion of six work packages. The first two WPs (WP1 & WP2) focus on collecting data on cetacean abundance and distribution through implementation of aerial surveys on the continental shelf and shipboard surveys in offshore waters. The data will be analysed in WP3 to generate abundance estimates, trends and perform spatio-temporal habitat modelling. WP4 will consider the long-term security of the large-scale cetacean monitoring SCANS programme in the Northeast Atlantic and propose a governance structure to ensure the continuation into the future. WPs 5 & 6 will focus on dissemination of results, project management and reporting.

Results:

Estimates of cetacean abundance in European Atlantic waters in summer 2022 from the SCANS-IV aerial and shipboard surveys. Final

report published 29 September 2023. 64 pp.

https://tinyurl.com/3ynt6swa

Cooperation Partners:

Projektkoordination Dr. Anita Gilles, ITAW-Stiftung Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover

University of St Andrews, United Kingdom

Joint Nature Conservation Committee, United Kingdom

Wageningen Marine Research, Netherlands

Aarhus University, Denmark

Swedish Museum of Natural History, Sweden

La Rochelle University, France

Instituto Español de Oceanografia, Spain

University of Aveiro, CESAM - Centre of Environmental and Marine Studies and Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas, Portugal

Funding: Niedersächsische Tierseuchenkasse, 134.050 EUR

Project Details:
The project aims to develope and to evaluate a filtration system that can be used in natural vetilated poultry houses in transistion periods to prevent from AI entries via air. The lifespan of filters, filter efficiencies and the impact of air filtration on the quality of climate in natural ventilated barns are unknown. Therefore, investigations will be conducted at a natural ventilated turkey barn, equiped with a fine dust filtration system.

Cooperation Partners:

Big Dutchman AG

Funding: MWK, 75.880 EUR

Project Details:
Circular RNAs regulating the SARS-CoV-2 infection in the cardiovascular system.

Results:

https://www.umg.eu/forschung/corona/cofoni/

Funding: QS Fachgesellschaft Geflügel GmbH, 40.000 EUR

Project Details:
The aim of the project is to scientifically evaluate a combination of different approaches in practice and to comprehensively analyze whether the following measures significantly improve animal health and, in particular, reliably prevent enterococcal infections.

Funding: MELUND, 749.985 EUR

Project Details:
The Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) is (re-)expanding in all parts of the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein (SH) nowadays. As an aquatic mammal, otters mainly inhabit rivers, streams and lakes but also forage along the coastlines. Otters primarily feed on fish, whereas they are considered food generalists and also target amphibians, crustaceans, birds, mammals and other invertebrates. It is assumed that the decline of certain endangeredeD fish species can be linked to the growing otter population. Furthermore, there is an increase in conflicts between fisheries and otter conservation, both nationally and internationally. Therefore, an extensive evaluation of the current conflict potential between the growing otter population, fisheries situation and conservation conflicts between species is needed. This will be covered in the frame of this research project that focuses on fisheries, natural otter habitat and spawning areas of endangered salmonids in comparison:
-Installing wildlife cameras to assess the local abundance of otters
-Dietary analysis to investigate the prey spectrum of otters
-Determination of otter individuals using spraints (genetic fingerprinting)
-Evaluation of a potential conservation conflict between otters and salmonids
-Development of acustic deterrents to protect fisheries from otters
-Analysing reproduction parameters to assess the population health of otters using specimens found dead

Funding: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama Secretaria Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia, Panama, 18.000 EUR

Project Details:
The evolution of different forms of parental care is an important topic in behavioral ecology, and it involves complex suites of associated parental and offspring traits. For example, some parents provide nourishment or selection and protection of suitable nesting sites for offspring. Understanding how memory guides individuals to locate or return to a reproductive resource is one of the major challenges in studies of animal behavior. During parental care, poison frogs routinely transport their tadpoles from terrestrial clutches to suitable deposition sites, and some individuals return to supply their offspring with nutritive unfertilized eggs. Thus, these frogs rely on spatial memory to exploit resources important for successful reproduction. However, it is unknown how the spatial abilities are related to the parental care traits performed by an individual. The aim of this study is to investigate behavioral spatial strategies and their genetic basis in the strawberry poison-dart frog, Oophaga pumilio. To investigate the spatial strategies in the context of parental care we aim examining ability of females and males to find a goal in a plus maze under experimental conditions. Moreover, we will determine the possible genes involved in spatial learning through gene expression analysis (RNASeq) of the pallium, the brain region known to be involved in spatial learning. Since females perform most parental care duties involving navigation in large home ranges, we expect females to have better spatial abilities than males.

Cooperation Partners:

Dr. Roberto Ibañéz, Ph. D., Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Prof. Dr. Klaudia Witte, Universität Siegen