Here you can find information about the society and the current board members, as well as updates about meetings, conferences and any other events relating to behavioural biology in the Netherlands and Belgium.
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Registration for upcoming NVG meeting (19-21.11), PhD workshop, financial support MSc students
Our annual meeting is less than two months away! This year a week earlier than usual, 19-21 November at hotel Zuiderduin in Egmond aan Zee.
You can register for the meeting via this link.
Deadline for sending in abstracts & registration is October 20th.
For PhD students, you are welcome to register for the PhD workshop, which will be held on Wednesday the 19th of November from 10h00 to 17h15. The goal of the workshop is to facilitate contact and discussion among PhD students in behavioural biology. There are about 25 PhD students and 2 senior researchers, all of whom will be present throughout the day. More info on the topic will follow.
For MSc students, thanks to the scholarship provided by Burgers’ zoo, you have the chance to apply for financial support to cover the conference fee and stay (in a shared room). Prerequisites are: you present either a talk or poster; have the approval of your supervisor to attend and present; do not have access to funds to cover conference fees via your research group/institute;
We have funds for max 10 students, the selection is based on the quality of the abstract. If you happen not to receive the grant, you can still cancel your participation.
And for those who feel creative: we are still looking for a new logo! You’re welcome to email us your suggestion (use of AI is allowed) until 16-11-2025!
Membership and conference registration
You can now register as a member year round via the following link, which also takes you to the registration for the annual meeting:
NVG membership and conference registration form
The deadline for the conference registration is October 20th 2025.
NVG annual meeting: 19-21 November, Hotel Zuiderduin, Egmond aan Zee, NL
We are very happy to announce the Baerends and Dobberke lectures and keynote speakers for the NVG meeting!
Further details on the programme and registration will follow.
Dobberke lecture
Rita Covas (CIBIO/University of Porto) is broadly interested in the causes and consequences of sociality and cooperation, at the individual and population levels. She studies these topics in populations of the Sociable Weaver and Southern-Ground Hornbills in South Africa. She is also interested in adaptation to island environments and what this can teach us about the evolution of life-histories and behavioural traits, such as reproductive characteristics, ornamentation, immunity, and sociality.
Baerends lecture
Elodie Briefer, of the University of Copenhagen, studies the cognition and vocal communication of mammals and birds. Her research aims to improve our understanding of how animals use vocal signals to convey information about their identity or status, how emotions influence communication and cognition, and how the transmission of this information affects social interactions and relationships. This knowledge will ultimately help to improve animal welfare and can be used for conservation purposes.
Keynotes
Like humans, great apes exhibit striking diversity in social behaviour, communication and personality. In her research, Nicky Staes (Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp/University of Antwerp) explores the biological mechanisms underlying this variation across and within species, focusing on how neurochemicals such as serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin and sex hormones shape the social brain. She also investigates how genetic and epigenetic differences, as well as the gut microbiome, influence these neurobiological systems.
Suzanne van der Veldt is a behavioural neuroscientist and is based at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. She studies how brain circuits in mice support adaptive behaviour—particularly learning, memory, and emotional responses—and how these processes may differ between sexes. Her research focuses on the septohippocampal system, a network involved in spatial navigation and the regulation of approach avoidance behavior. Using in vivo neural recordings combined with cell-type specific activation in mice, she investigates how animals assign emotional meaning to places and experiences, and how these associations guide future behaviour.
Jonathan Benichov is an Assistant Professor in Avian Neurobiology at the Institute of Biology, Leiden University. His research focuses on the neural circuits that coordinate interactive vocal behavior in songbirds. Using a combination of behavioral assays, neurophysiological recordings, and computational approaches, Jonathan aims to uncover how animals flexibly adapt their vocal behavior in real time, across social contexts.
SAVE THE DATE
NVG ANNUAL MEETING 2025 – 19-21 November 2025
The 2025 NVG meeting will be held from Wednesday November 19th to Friday November 21th in conference hotel Zuiderduin in Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands.
Details on registration, abstract submission and conference attendance grants for MSc students will follow.
Older news
Program and abstracts NVG meeting 2024 available: https://www.gedragsbiologie.nl/2024/11/27/program-and-abstracts-nvg-meeting-2024/
PhD Workshop (27 November 2024, Egmond aan Zee)
The programme of the PhD workshop and additional information are now available here.
Registration for the NVG Annual Meeting (27-29 November 2024, Egmond aan Zee) is now closed
Results of abstract submissions and scholarship applications will be announced by 13.11.2024.
Best wishes, the NVG board
Bionieuws actie Baerends and Dobberke lezing
Bionieuws readers who would like to obtain a free ticket for the Dobberke lecture (Rose Thorogood; 27.11.2024; 20:00) or Baerends lecture (Andy Radford; 28.11.2024; 20:00) may contact Martijn Hammers
NVG Newsletter September 2024
In the link below you can find the latest newsletter of the Netherlands Society for Behavioural Biology. In the newsletter you will find more information about the upcoming annual meeting that will be held 27-29 November 2024 in Egmond aan Zee (registration will open at the end of September 2024), news about recently-defended PhD work, and more!
NVG newsletter September 2024
NVG annual meeting 2024
27-29 November 2024, Egmond aan Zee
Baerends & Dobberke lectures & key-note speakers confirmed
We are very happy to announce the Baerends and Dobberke lectures and key-note speakers for the NVG meeting. Further details on the programme and registration will follow later.
Baerends Lecture
Andy Radford is a behavioural ecologist at the University of Bristol, UK. Andy has two main research interests. One is the conflicts and collaborations that arise within and between groups, and how vocal communication is used to mediate these social interactions. For these questions, he mainly works on a variety of wild bird populations, dwarf mongooses and meerkats in South Africa (he ran the long-term Dwarf Mongoose Research Project for 13 years) and a captive population of cichlid fish. Andy’s second line of research concerns the impact and mitigation of human activities on wildlife. Here, a particular focus has been on marine noise pollution, documenting effects on the behaviour, physiology, development as well as testing potential management solutions. Beyond research, Andy is an award-winning lecturer and supervisor, and is passionate about public engagement.
Dobberke Lecture
Rose Thorogood is a behavioural ecologist at the University of Helsinki, Finland. With her research Rose seeks to understand why and when animals use information from personal experience versus information they have gathered by observing the actions of others, or if these sources of information are in fact combined. The way an individual uses information is actually not only relevant for the individual itself, but it may also have implications for others in their community. Individuals could benefit from social information, as knowledge comes from a wider network of individuals. Yet, if information is gathered or passed on with error, this could have negative consequences as well. With her studies in captivity and in the wild, Rose ultimately aims at investigating how information use might affect evolutionary outcomes. She studies this in brood parasites (such as cuckoos), in predator-prey interactions (using great tits as model predators), and in a conservation context, as the ways how animals acquire and use information could influence their abilities to adapt.
Key-note speakers
Karline Janmaat is a cognitive behavioural ecologist and is based at the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam and she holds a complementary position at Artis and Leiden University. Karline’s main research goal is to understand the evolutionary function and diversity of cognition among individual animals and primates in particular. She uses a combination of detailed individual-based observations, longitudinal data, as well as state of the art modelling techniques.
Buddhamas Pralle Kriengwatana works at the Department of Biosystems, at KU Leuven where she works at the intersections between behavioural ecology, animal welfare, and cognitive sciences. She is particularly interested in bioacoustics and animal acoustic management, with the aim of understanding and improving emotional states, health and behaviour of animal in farming environments.
Thomas Blankers was recently appointed at the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam. Thomas studies speciation and evolutionary change by integrating insights at the level of genes, organisms, populations and communities. To achieve this he combines population genetics, experimental evolution, and behavioural experiments in nematodes, moths and crickets.
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Save the date! NVG meeting 2024
Wednesday 27th November – Friday 29th November 2024
Save the date: the dates for the next annual meeting of the NVG are confirmed! The annual meeting will be held at Hotel Zuiderduin in Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands from 27-29 November 2024. More news will follow. We hope to see you there!
Funding opportunities for NVG members
The NVG supports behavioural biology-related events and activities (e.g. workshops) that are organised by NVG members. NVG members can contact the board to discuss the possibilites for funding.
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NVG meeting 2023
Wednesday 22nd November – Friday 24th November
The 2023 NVG meeting will be held from Wednesday November 22nd to Friday November 24th in conference hotel ‘Zuiderduin‘ in Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands.
The program, including a timetable for all talks, can be found here: NVG Program 2023.
Registration is now closed
The meeting starts on Wednesday evening, after the PhD workshop and will go until Friday afternoon. Highlights of this meeting are the keynote lectures, including the Brill Baerends Lecture and the Dobberke lecture for which internationally renowned behavioural biologists are invited. This year the Dobberke Lecture (Wednesday evening) will be presented by Prof. Melanie Dammhahn. On Thursday, the Brill Baerends Lecture will be presented by Prof. Eva Ringler, who will take about ‘what amphibians can teach us about the evolution of parental care‘. For more information on the meeting and the PhD workshop, please go to Meetings –> NVG meeting 2023.
Speakers
Eva Ringler (University of Bern, Switzerland)
What amphibians can teach us about the evolution of parental care
Eva Ringler completed her doctorate on the mating system of a poison frog Allobates femoralis at the University of Vienna (Austria) in 2011. Thereafter she worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Vienna and the University of California Los Angeles (US). Eva Ringler worked on a variety of topics within the field of Behavioural Biology and Ecology, including parental care, animal personalities, developmental plasticity, life-history decisions and olfaction/communication, typically using amphibians (or lizards) as a model species. In 2020, Eva became Assistant Professor and Head of the Division of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Bern (Switzerland, successor of Michael Taborsky), where she in addition and together with her research team started to work on cognition and adaptive decision making in social contexts as part of two SNSF funded projects.
Melanie Dammhahn (University of Münster, Germany)
My niche: evolution and ecology of individual behavioural difference
Melanie Dammhahn is a behavioural ecologist and since 2022 Professor for Behavioural Biology at the University of Münster. After obtaining her PhD on variation in social systems of mouse lemurs, Malagasy primates, in Göttingen (Germany), she studied behaviour and ecology of various mammals in Madagascar, Canada and Germany. Her research interests are at the interface between behaviour, ecology and evolution. Specifically, she studies patterns and determinants of among-individual (co)variation in behaviour, physiology and life-history and their consequences for ecological interactions within and between species. Some projects also aim to illuminate drivers and limits of behavioural responses to human-induced rapid environmental change at key eco-evolutionary levels of variation (individual, population, community).
Prof. Anne Peters (Monash University, Australia)
Multi-level social structure and cooperative behaviour in small songbird
Dr. Edwin van Leeuwen (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
The scope of culture in non-human animals: a primatological approach
Dr. Marion Nicolaus (University of Groningen, The Netherlands)
Eco-evolutionary consequences of dispersal syndromes
Phd seminar on behaviour and hormones at Utrecht University
Hormonal regulation of animal relationships
New course on animal tracking at the University of Wageningen:
Fundaments of animal monitoring systems: animal tracking and data analysis
In the age of information, we have access to an unprecedented level of details of the animal life on Earth. The possibilities of exploration and investigation of our planet seem, at times, limitless. At the same time the increasing biodiversity crisis calls for more data and more detailed investigation on the relationships between animal behaviour and movement within the environment. Understanding how animals move across landscapes, how the landscape (i.e. environment) changes over time, and the intersection between those topics will allow us to solve long-standing puzzles in ecology.
To address these fundamental questions on animal movement and environmental change, researchers have been using a plethora of technologies to gather relevant data. In this course, attendees will learn the fundaments of various animal tracking and remote sensing techniques and how to process and to analyse the resulting large datasets.
The course is open for registration: https://wias.crs.wur.nl/courses/details/1622/
UPDATE: To celebrate our 30th birthday at the 2022 NVG meeting, Prof. Frans de Waal will give the Brill-Baerends lecture:
Title: Evolution of Emotions and Empathy in the Primates
Emotions suffuse much of the language employed by students of animal behavior — from “social bonding” to “alarm calls” — yet are still regularly avoided as explicit topic in scientific discourse. Given the increasing interest of human psychology in the emotions, and the neuroscience on animal emotions such as fear and attachment, the taboo that has hampered animal research in this area is outdated. It is crucial to separate emotions from feelings, which are subjective experiences that may or may not accompany the emotions. Whereas science has no access to animal feelings, animal emotions are as observable and measurable (face, voice, physiology, neural activity) as human emotions. They are mental and bodily states that potentiate behavior appropriate to mostly social situations. I will discuss early ideas about animal emotions and draw upon research on empathy and the perception of emotions in primates to make the point that the study of animal emotions is a necessary complement to the study of behavior. Emotions are best viewed as the organizers of adaptive responses to environmental stimuli. Empathy rests on the capacity to perceive another’s emotions and induces matching emotions in the perceiver.
Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal is a Dutch/American biologist and primatologist known for his work on the behavior and social intelligence of primates. His first book, Chimpanzee Politics (1982), compared the schmoozing and scheming of chimpanzees involved in power struggles with that of human politicians. His scientific work has been published in hundreds of technical articles in journals such as Science, Nature, Scientific American, and outlets specialized in animal behavior. His popular books – translated into 20+ languages – have made him one of the world’s most visible primatologists. His latest books are Mama’s Last Hug (Norton, 2019) and Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist (Norton, 2022). De Waal is C. H. Candler Professor Emeritus at Emory University and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Utrecht University. He has been elected to the (US) National Academy of Sciences as well as the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2007, Time declared him one of The Worlds’ 100 Most Influential People Today.
NVG meeting 2022
Save the date! This year’s annual meeting of the NVG will be 23-25th November 2022. With plenary lectures from scientists at the forefront of behavioural biology, including primatologist Frans de Waal, and a fantastic programme showcasing Dutch and Belgian behavioural research.
ECBB 2022 in Groningen
The European Conference for Behavioural Biology was organised in Groningen from 21 – 24th of July. It was a great conference with fantastic plenaries, speakers and posters – with a strong showing from the Dutch and Belgian behavioural biologists! You can get a nice summary of some of the highlights on twitter @ECBB2022.
Help wanted for organising a joint meeting with the Brain Cognition Behaviour Network in 2022
NVG is part of a new network of societies in the Netherlands, the Brain Cognition Behaviour network (BCB-NL; https://neurolab.nl/en/bcb-nl-2-2/ ). BCB-NL is an umbrella platform between the Dutch associations and networks for research into brain, cognition and behaviour. This platform aims to join forces and promote the interests of brain, cognition and behavioural research in the Netherlands and the social issues related to this field.
The network is planning a range of activities allowing interested members of the societies to interact with each other. Currently there is a combined event being planned in the spring / early summer of 2022. The focus of the event will be on younger / early career researchers in our field.
To organize this event, NVG has been asked if a society member wants to be part of the event organization team. The team wants to meet very soon, so if you are interested, please contact Marc Naguib (marc.naguib@wur.nl) as soon as possible.
EFP-GfP 2022 Arnhem
We are very happy to welcome you to the joint Conference of the European Federation of Primatology and the Gesellschaft für Primatologie in the Royal Burgers’ Zoo, Arnhem, the Netherlands, home of one of the most famous chimpanzee populations in the world. Registration is now open on www.efp-gfp2022arnhem.com
NVG 2021 was organised at Egmond aan Zee from 24-26th of November
Our annual NVG meeting will be hosted at Egmond aan Zee, starting Wednesday evening the 24th of November and finishing Friday afternoon on the 26th of November. Keynote speakers include Prof. Steve Nowicki, Dr. Miriam Knörnschild, Dr. Lysanne Snijders, Dr. Frederick Verbruggen and Dr. Emily Burdfiel-Steel. More details can be found here.
PhD and MSc workshop Wednesday 24th of November
The PhD and MSc workshop will be organised prior to our annual meeting and will take place in Egmond aan Zee. More details can be found here.
Older news
NVG 2020 online
Our annual NVG meeting was hosted online during the afternoon of Thursday the 26th of November. We had two plenary speakers, Lars Chittka, from the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, UK & Barbara Caspers, from Bielefeld University, Department of Animal Behaviour, Bielefeld, Germany. For the full program see here.
BCB-NL organized their start event on November 4th 2020
The recently founded platform “Brain Cognition and Behaviour – The Netherlands” (BCB-NL) hosted its first event. BCB-NL is an alliance between the Dutch associations and networks for research into brain, cognition and behavior, including the NVG. BCB-NL’s vision is to foster interdisciplinary research, knowledge exchange and collaboration to support science and society.
First Dobberke lecture at NVG2019 by Jolle Jolles
Eerste Dobberke Lecture tijdens jaarlijks congres van de Nederlandse Vereniging voor Gedragsbiologie door Jolle Jolles
The role of individual heterogeneity in the collective behaviour of animal groups, door Jolle Jolles (MPIO Konstanz) gehouden op 27 november 2019, tijdens de Zoology/NVG 2019 meeting, te Groningen.
For detailed report see here. Voor een gedetailleerd rapport zie hier
Very first joint-meeting of NVG and Zoology
Our very first joint-meeting with the KNDV (Dutch Royal Society of Zoologists) and BZS (Royal Belgian Zoological Society) was with ±170 participants well attended. The meeting kicked-off on Wednesday evening in the Academie building with the very first Dobberke lecture by Jolle Jolles. The next morning we continued with a dedicated NVG slot, followed by the Baerendz lecture from Susanne Åkesson. A detailed report will follow in the next newsletter (here).
For more information on this special meeting see the 2019 meeting page or https://zoology2019.com/
Nieuwe versie Handreiking ‘dierproeven’ met wilde dieren
Er is een nieuwe versie van de handreiking ‘dierproeven met wilde dieren in hun biotoop’ opgesteld. Een eerdere versie is vorig jaar gepubliceerd. Deze nieuwe versie beschrijft de kaders voor dierproeven met wilde dieren in hun biotoop, welke beslismomenten een rol spelen en hoe de wettelijke kaders ingevuld dienen te worden. En is aangeveuld met de specifieke aandachtsvelden.
Click HERE for the link to the ‘handreiking’ website from the CCD and the link to the document.
NVG 25th anniversary booklet on Behavioural Biology in The Netherlands
For our 25th anniversary Monica Wesseling wrote ‘Hoe slaap je slim maakt en apen elkaar bedriegen’.
This is a small booklet with a compilation of appealing stories of studies on Behaviour conducted in the Netherlands.
You can download this booklet as a PDF HERE (2.5MB).
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