Eberhard Curio

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Eberhard Curio next to a monitor lizard trap (2006)

Eberhard Curio (born October 22, 1932 in Berlin ) is a German behavioral researcher and ecologist who initially researched in the field of ornithology and ecological behavior and later gained international fame through his scientific commitment to species protection in Tonga , Fiji and the Philippines . Curio is a professor emeritus at the Ruhr University Bochum .

Life

Eberhard Curio attended elementary school in Berlin from 1939 to 1942 and high school from 1942 to 1950. From 1950 to 1957 he studied natural sciences at the Free University of Berlin with a focus on zoology . In 1957 he was promoted to Dr. rer. nat. PhD ; his dissertation was entitled "Behavioral Studies on Pied Flycatchers " and was published in 1959 as Supplement No. 3 of the Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie .

In 1957 Curio initially worked as a research assistant at the bird sanctuary in Ludwigsburg and from 1957 to 1964, also as a research assistant, in Konrad Lorenz's department at the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology in Seewiesen . From 1964 to 1967 he held a teaching position for zoology at the University of Tübingen , and in 1968 he completed his habilitation at the Faculty of Biology at the Ruhr University in Bochum .

As a lecturer , Eberhard Curio founded the working group for behavioral research at the Bochum Faculty of Biology in 1968 , which he transferred to the Conservation Biology Unit in 1998 and of which he has been a professor since 1971. In 1998 he retired .

Curio has been a member of WWF since 1967 and a member of BUND since 1970 . In 2006 he was one of the supporters of the campaign for full liability insurance for German nuclear power plants.

Research topics

Coral-beaked hornbill
(painting by E. Curio)

Eberhard Curio dedicated himself early as 1950 by the making of Ethogrammen of ethology and beyond the population ecology of songbirds , with special interest to him, as they know their predators visually; then the prey recognizes enemies by identifying them on various enemy-specific perception 'channels', perceiving them visually and taking care of their offspring: how do parents share brood care and control the strength of their brood defense depending on the quality and number of their offspring and / or their future breeding prospects? How do males recognize that they may be raising strange cubs?

A second focus of interest was the question of how reptiles (eg Anolis recognize their prey individually different -Echsen). During numerous trips abroad he conducted research in southern Macedonia (1958), in Spain (1960), the Galapagos (1962/63), in Jamaica (1969), Panama (1979), Tonga (1990), Fiji (1990/91) - u. a. about the behavior of neotropical hawks and their caterpillar color forms. For the first time, he measured the selection advantage of a behavior in which the color forms differ.

The topics he worked on also included the question of whether small populations of bird species that are native to the South Pacific (Fiji Archipelago, Philippines ) can survive on their own, or whether they need regular "blood refreshment" from populations on other islands. By analyzing the mitochondrial DNA from 700 blood samples from selected Tongan species , it is examined to what extent island populations are genetically isolated from one another and thereby endangered. Together with his students, he reduced the risk of extinction of the highly endangered Tonga large footed fowl, which incubates its eggs using volcanic heat by moving eggs from their only home island to another, hostile and poor island.

From 2001 to 2003, Eberhard Curio directed and coordinated the then newly established EU program for biodiversity research in the nine ASEAN countries on behalf of the EU .

natural reserve

Since 1993 Eberhard Curio has been in the Philippines for several months each year, where he is dedicated to protecting endemic birds. In 1995 he founded the Philippine Endemic Species Conservation Project (PESCP) with the support of the Frankfurt Zoological Society , and in 1997 he set up a research station on Panay in the last preserved low forest of the Visayas region ( Panay Eco-Social Conservation Project , PanayCon).

Curio is the founder, president and scientific advisor of the non-profit Philippine conservation organization Philincon (Philippine Initiative For Conservation of Environment And The People), which oversees and funds the Panay Eco-Social Conservation Project . The focus of the work of the organization founded in 1995 was initially the island of Negros , later it relocated to the island of Panay.

With the help of this station, on the one hand, species protection-oriented basic research is to be facilitated and, for example, the protection of wild hornbills , such as the endangered Panayhorn bird , is to be improved by guarding their nests; On the other hand, the species-appropriate release of confiscated birds is also one of the goals of the project.

In order to protect the threatened birds - and with them numerous other similarly endangered animal species - and their habitats, attempts are being made to open up new sources of income for the locals and to raise their awareness of species protection . For this purpose, u. a. the cultivation of ginger , high-quality vegetables and tiger grass ( Centella asiatica ) propagated. Former poachers and hunters have also been hired as gamekeepers to guard the hornbills' nests. Due to the preliminary work of the PESCP, the European Union has also committed itself to a research project on Panay, the aim of which is the permanent establishment of useful forests that can serve as a source of income for the population without harming the rainforest. Such commercial forests should be planted in buffer zones between cleared areas and rainforest that is worth protecting.

Honors

In 1995 Eberhard Curio received the "Ornithologists Prize" from the German Ornithologists Society for his studies on the quantification of selection factors and the application of behavioral knowledge to species protection.

In May 2003, the International Biographical Center in Cambridge awarded him the title Scientist of the Year ("Scientist of the Year 2003"). In 2004 the same organization awarded him the International Educator of the Year ("Educator of the Year 2004") award .

Fonts

  • The Ethology of Predation. Springer Verlag, 1976
  • with Rolf Blaich and Norbert Rieder : The functional connection between an action and the arousal on which it is based as the basis of the ethometry of key stimuli. In: Journal of Comparative Physiology . Vol. 62, pp. 301-317, 1969
  • Behavioral studies on pied flycatchers. Supplement 3 to the magazine for animal psychology . Parey Verlag, Berlin and Hamburg, 1959.
  • with Rolf Blaich and Norbert Rieder: Two innate releasing mechanisms subserving the same motor pattern system. In: Nature . Volume 225, p. 750, 1970, doi: 10.1038 / 225750a0
  • Validity of the selective coefficient of a behavior trait in hawkmoth larvae. In: Nature. Volume 228, p. 382, ​​1970, doi: 10.1038 / 228382a0 .
  • Towards a methodology of teleonomy. In: Experientia. Volume 29, pp. 1045-1058, 1973.
  • Why do young birds reproduce less well? In: Ibis. Volume 125, pp. 400-404, 1983.
  • Cultural transmission of enemy recognition by birds. In: Zentall, T., and BG Galef: Social learning: psychological and biological perspectives. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, pp. 75-97, 1988.
  • Proximate and developmental aspects of antipredator behavior. In: Advances in the Study of Behavior. Volume 22, pp. 135-238, Academic Press, 1993.
  • Prioritization of Philippine Island avifaunas for conservation: a new combinatorial measure. In: Biological Conservation. Volume 106, 373-380, 2002

Web links

  • www.panaycon.org Website of the Panay Eco-Social Conservation Project (PanayCon, in English)
  • Homepage of philincon.de (operated by the Bird Research and Species Protection Foundation), founder and scientific advisor Prof. Dr. E. Curio.

Individual evidence

  1. a b Professor Dr. Eberhard Curio, Scientific adviser, Philincon President and Founder
  2. RUBENS 1998
  3. Nationwide signature campaign: Immediately full liability insurance for German nuclear power plants. ( Memento from February 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) On: atomhaftpflicht.de , as of February 9, 2007.
  4. Prof. Curio receives EU Chair for Biodiversity. On: ruhr-uni-bochum.de from September 11, 2001 (with photo by Eberhard Curio).