Courses, Defenses & Events

IMPRS organised events in 2025

• Selection Symposium: 10. - 12. March
• IMPRS PhD retreat: 14. - 16. May
• Data Analysis with R (course): starting in March
• Scientific Writing (workshop): 3. - 4. July
• Peer Review (workshop): 7. - 8. July
• Welcome Week: 29. Sep - 2. Oct
• Data visualisation with R (course): starting November

Upcomming Seminars

Selection Symposium 2025

Selection Symposium 2025

• Start: Mar 10, 2025
• End: Mar 12, 2025
• Location: University of Konstanz
• Host: IMPRS-QBEE
• Contact: imprs@uni-konstanz.de

[more]

Male reproductive tactics in Bornean orangutans and introduction to the long-term research site Danum Valley

Guest Seminar by Tomoyuki Tajim

• Date: Mar 11, 2025
• Time: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
• Speaker: Tomoyuki Tajim
• Osaka University / Kyoto University
• Location: Bückle St. 5a, 78467 Konstanz
• Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Bücklestrasse + Online
• Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior

I have been studying Bornean orangutans at Sepilok and Danum Valley in Malaysia. My focus is on male reproductive tactics and food-sharing behavior. I am also interested in the social development of great apes during the “adolescent” period. [more]

Understanding the elements that shape the ontogeny of migratory behaviour

Rado Seminar by Anumit Saralkar

• Date: Mar 14, 2025
• Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
• Speaker: Anumit Saralkar
• Location: Bückle St. 5a, 78467 Konstanz
• Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Bücklestrasse + Online
• Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
• Contact: ddechmann@ab.mpg.de

Long-distance migrations are full of choices. Migrating animals have to make a plethora of decisions about routes, timings, stopovers and destinations, each of which can influence their development and breeding success. In such cases, relying only on innate information is highly risky, and so, many ... [more]

What Crumpled Sheets Can Teach Us About Computation and Earthquakes

Institute Seminar by Dor Shohat

• Date: Mar 18, 2025
• Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
• Speaker: Dor Shohat
• Location: University of Konstanz + online
• Room: ZT702 UKN + online
• Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior

Take a scrap piece of paper from your desk and crumple it into a ball. It may not be immediately apparent, but this everyday object exhibits rich mechanical properties that can provide insights about efficient memory storage, novel computation strategies, and even the dynamics of earthquakes ... [more]

Data Analysis with R - Introduction to R Programming (online course)

Data Analysis with R (online course)

• Start: Mar 25, 2025 09:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
• End: Apr 8, 2025 05:30 PM
• Speaker: Rick Scavetta
• Rick Scavetta has been operating as an independent workshop trainer, freelance data scientist, and co-founder since 2012. Under the name Scavetta Academy, Rick maintains a strong and recurring presence at prominent research institutes throughout Germany. These include several Max Planck Institutes and Excellence Clusters, covering diverse fields such as primatology, earth sciences, marine biology, molecular genetics, and behavioral psychology. With online courses featured on DataCamp, Rick's teachings have reached more than 200,000 students since 2016. Additionally, he has made contributions to advanced data science courses offered by O’Reilly and Manning.
• Location: online
• Host: IMPRS AND KONSTANZ RESEARCH SCHOOL
• Contact: imprs@uni-konstanz.de

[more]

Institute Seminar by Redouan Bshary

Institute Seminar by Redouan Bshary

• Date: Apr 8, 2025
• Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
• Speaker: Redouan Bshary
• Location: Bückle St. 5a, 78467 Konstanz
• Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Bücklestrasse + Online
• Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
• Contact: cchen@ab.mpg.de

[more]

Institute Seminar by Martina Scacco

Institute Seminar by Martina Scacco

• Date: Apr 15, 2025
• Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
• Speaker: Martina Scacco
• Location: MPI-AB Möggingen
• Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Möggingen + Online
• Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
• Contact: fdecina@ab.mpg.de

[more]

Adaptation in multiple plant-insect interactions and one scientist’s career

Institute Seminar by Carina Baskett

• Date: Apr 29, 2025
• Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
• Speaker: Carina Baskett
• Carina Baskett completed her PhD in 2018 in plant evolutionary ecology advised by Doug Schemske and Marjorie Weber at Michigan State University, USA. She did a postdoc with Nick Barton at Institute of Science and Technology-Austria outside Vienna, studying flower color variation in wild snapdragons. In 2021, she transitioned from research to grant writing and professional development in an interdisciplinary microbiology research center at Georgia Tech, USA. After three years, she moved back to Vienna and is coordinating a collaborative grant and a graduate program at Vetmeduni. When not at work or moving across the Atlantic, she is chasing after two kids and/or climbing.
• Location: Bückle St. 5a, 78467 Konstanz
• Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Bücklestrasse + Online
• Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
• Contact: tmontgomery@ab.mpg.de

A fundamental question at the intersection of ecology and evolution is how do biotic and abiotic environments differentially influence adaptation and diversification? The abiotic environment can change, but it cannot coevolve (a process of reciprocal adaptation). This profound difference is ... [more]

Reciprocity in animals

Institute Seminar by Gerry Carter

• Date: May 6, 2025
• Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
• Speaker: Gerry Carter
• I'm an Associate Professor at Princeton University, a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), and a Freeman Hrabowski Scholar at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. I was previously an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University, a Humboldt Fellow at MPI-AB (then Ornithology) in Konstanz, and a Smithsonian Postdoc Fellow at STRI. I did my PhD with Jerry Wilkinson at the University of Maryland. Outside work, my hobbies are that my kids are 4 and 2 years old.
• Location: MPI-AB Möggingen
• Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Möggingen + Online
• Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
• Contact: ehurme@ab.mpg.de

Reciprocity has been a controversial topic in behavioral ecology for over 40 years. How often is cooperation between animals stabilized by conditional responses to each partner's helping (reciprocity)? How often are cooperative investments explained by product returns (pseudo-reciprocity)? I argue ... [more]

IMPRS PhD student retreat 2025

IMPRS PhD student retreat 2025

• Start: May 14, 2025 12:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
• End: May 16, 2025 12:00 PM
• Location: Jugendherberge Burg Wildenstein

[more]