Minerva Center for Movement Ecology
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (established in 2012)
Prof. Ran Nathan
DirectorProf. Igor M. Sokolov
Chairman
Read more about the ATLAS project at the Minerva Center of Movement Ecology
Keywords
Movement of individual organisms; ecological and evolutionary processes; individual movement patterns
Research activities and aims
The movement of individual organisms - one of the most fundamental features of life - is a crucial component of almost any ecological and evolutionary process and must be taken into consideration when dealing with major problems such as habitat fragmentation, climate change, biological invasions and the spread of pests and diseases. Despite its global importance, individual movement patterns are still poorly known, largely due to technological constraints that are currently being overcome for the first time. However, we are presently entering a golden age for movement studies that will soon allow us to unify tools and insights on all movement phenomena across scientific fields, from physics and engineering to ecology and biology. The proposed Movement Ecology (MovEco) Minerva Center aims at advancing groundbreaking integrative research on the movement of organisms. We propose a multidisciplinary team of leading researchers with diverse backgrounds and complementary expertise to tackle the four key challenges of elucidating the links between movement patterns and their underlying processes:
- The fitness consequences of lifetime movement;
- The secrets of animal navigation;
- The drivers of inter-continental bird migration.
Ten different aspects of three major activity themes will serve for training and promoting young scientists, for establishing new scientific networks and transdisciplinary research projects, and for developing general analysis tools, data sharing (MoveBank) and multiparty field research facilities.