Andrea Flack
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anflack.bsky.social
Andrea Flack
@anflack.bsky.social
Group leader @mpi-animalbehav. Fascinated by 🐦. Studies ontogeny of bird migration, collective migration. Biologging. White storks. Head of the Flack flock. Mother of 2.
Reposted by Andrea Flack
How do storks learn to migrate efficiently? IMPRS-QBEE student @hbronnv.bsky.social, working with @anflack.bsky.social use GPS ani accelerometer tags to study how white storks balance the costs and benefits of migratory decisions

@mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

youtube.com/shorts/A-kNB...
Hester Brønnvik | Ontogeny of stock migration
YouTube video by Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
youtube.com
October 27, 2025 at 10:35 AM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
Out today in @plosbiology.org (1/5)

Siblings and non-parental adults provide alternative pathways to cultural inheritance in juvenile great tits 🐦🧩

Link to study:
10.0.5.91/journal.pbio...

Co-authors:
@lucymaplin.bsky.social
@galarconnieto.bsky.social
October 9, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
More bad news for butterflies. Our new paper led by Wendy Leuenberger shows common species are declining even more rapidly than rare ones. @ZipkinLab

Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2501340122
Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS
Insects are declining worldwide. These declines have been documented across taxonomic groups and are worrisome given ecosystem services provided by...
www.pnas.org
August 4, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
I found this in the forest next to my house today… any idea what on earth this could possibly be??? I am a biologist - but come on… this is sick!! I am sure these are 👾 that have arrived here without anyone noticing!!? 🤯
August 2, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
Thrilled to share our new article in @pnas.org highlighting global gaps in where we study animal movement—and outlining the next generation of smart bio-loggers.

👉 Read the full study in PNAS: lnkd.in/exP8NCeZ
1/
July 30, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
Genau wie viele Menschen zeigen Tiere Anzeichen von Stress, wenn sie versuchen, für eine Gruppe von Artgenossen die Führung zu übernehmen. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt ein internationales Forschungsteam unter Beteiligung von #UniKonstanz @cbehav.bsky.social BiologInnen: t1p.de/zud05
July 23, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
What migrating storks can teach us about working smarter AND harder with age: elizabethgpreston.substack.com/p/how-to-sto... 🧪
How to Stop Worrying about What the Youngs Are Doing
Just keep flapping.
elizabethgpreston.substack.com
July 28, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
Featuring research by @anflack.bsky.social and @hbronnv.bsky.social!
July 28, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
New special issue of OSIRIS: "Animal Mobilities" 🐫🐠🐛

The volume was edited by MPIWG Research Scholars Tamar Novick, @lisaonaga.bsky.social, and Gabriel N. Rosenberg of the working groups "Out of Place, Out of Time" and "Proteins and Fibers."

🔗 bit.ly/amv4025

#HistSci #EnvHist #STS #Zoology
June 17, 2025 at 9:52 AM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
4 year fixed term postdoc position in Tasmania, Australia. Drones, camera traps, population monitoring.

careers.utas.edu.au/en/job/50114...
Current Vacancies
careers.utas.edu.au
July 16, 2025 at 5:03 AM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
Es ist doch einigermaßen erstaunlich, wie ein komplett haltloser Vorwurf eines angeblichen Plagiats den Ruf und die Karriere einer Richterin bedroht, während ein ehemaliger Gesundheitsminister, der Milliarden versenkt, völlig unbeschädigt weitermacht, obwohl es Belege und heftigen Widerstand gibt.
July 17, 2025 at 6:51 AM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
Our new #OpenAccess paper
How can long-term #ecology studies survive & resist political & social change, authoritarianism, war, but also embrace positive change?

The Białowieża Forest as an example of the resilience of long-term studies in a changing world:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 1/
March 1, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
In our new paper led by Ursula Heize, we show that >90% of #WhiteStork nests have anthropogenic materials (plastics, paper, etc). Ropes are particularly dangerous: ~12% of the chicks became entangled on ropes, particularly on baler twine!

Check out the paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A death trap in the nest: anthropogenic nest materials cause high mortality in a terrestrial bird
The impact of anthropogenic debris on wildlife, particularly in marine environments, has garnered significant attention in recent years due to the sev…
www.sciencedirect.com
July 15, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
2/5 We tracked 151 storks over up to 8 migrations (at 1 Hz!) to ask whether they improve their soaring skills to migrate efficiently. We identified > 55,000 soaring & > 6,000 flapping events that allowed us to compare flight across ages & seasons.
July 11, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
If there is an optimal behavior, why is there so much variation in the world? We found that, for white storks, context is everything. @anflack.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

New paper! @cellpress.bsky.social doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.06.044
🧵1/5
July 11, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Look at this beautiful new study by @hbronnv.bsky.social in @cellpress.bsky.social, and it even has a pretty animation! Experience AND motivation count when white storks migrate! #birds #migration #biologging #ontogeny #whitestork #ornithology Very proud supervisor here @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social
If there is an optimal behavior, why is there so much variation in the world? We found that, for white storks, context is everything. @anflack.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

New paper! @cellpress.bsky.social doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.06.044
🧵1/5
July 11, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
Unlocking the hidden biodiversity of Europe’s villages | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...
July 6, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
Wonderful! Happy birthday to Bill! My favourite:
July 5, 2025 at 2:39 PM
What a beautiful map of our data! I just found this, very nice!
#30DayMapChallenge Day 5 - A Journey

Tracking the seasonal migration journeys of White Storks across Africa & Europe via open data hosted by
Movebank

They've flown these routes for generations and centuries, moving freely across borders that mean nothing to them
June 27, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
New Review in #ProcB - The study of social animal #migrations: a synthesis of the past and guidelines for future research #OpenAccess #Behaviour ‪@irisdb.bsky.social‬ royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
June 19, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
Habitat availability is insufficient to explain regional variations in white stork breeding habitat preference

vist.ly/3n7aixg

📷 © David Ledan/Acrola

#HabitatPreferences #NestingHabitatSelection #SpeciesDistributionModels #ModelTransferability #CiconiaCiconia

June 19, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
We performed a systematic literature review and summarized the methodological approaches, scientific strength and more of 116 papers.

@mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @animaltracking.bsky.social @imprs-qbee.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de
June 18, 2025 at 5:40 AM
Reposted by Andrea Flack
🚨 New paper alert! 🚨
Excited to share our new review in @royalsocietypublishing.org Proceedings B! 🎉

We synthesize research on social factors influencing animal migration and offer guidelines for future research. Check it out here: doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

#OpenAccess #Migration #MovementEcology
The study of social animal migrations: a synthesis of the past and guidelines for future research | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Seasonal migration is a common behaviour seen in many species worldwide. There is evidence that social factors influence various migration decisions, but compared to the well-studied field of social f...
doi.org
June 18, 2025 at 5:23 AM