Prof. Dr. Klaudia Witte
Institute of Biology
Research Group Ecology & Behavioral Biology
University of Siegen
Adolf-Reichwein-Str. 2
57068 Siegen, Germany
Info
My research focuses on understanding the role of social information in mate choice in fish and birds. Since 2006 I am a professor for ecology and behavioral biology at the Institute of Biology at the University of Siegen. Before that I was a visiting professor in the lab of Prof. Luc-Alain Giraldeau at the Department of Biological Sciences, UQAM, Montreal. Between 1998 and 2006 I was a senior researcher and leader of the group sexual selection at the Department of Animal Behaviour at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. Between 1996-1998 I was a Post-doc in the lab of Prof. Mike Ryan at UT in Austin, Texas. I received my PhD and Diploma at the Ruhr-University at Bochum, Germany.
Contact
witte{a}biologie.uni-siegen.de
Work experience with computer animated stimuli
University of Siegen, Germany.
2012 - present
In 2012, I started a co-operation with Prof. Kuhnert, a computer scientist at University of Siegen, and an expert on real time learning systems focussing on real time pattern recognition in complex scenes and image sequence analysis in 3-D scenes. Within our research project on “Analysis through synthesis with virtual fish as a new method in mate choice experiments” (funded by the DFG) we create 3-D fish animations which can move via remote control in experiments on mate-choice coyping. Fish copy the mate choice of conspecifics after observing a heterospecifc pair during sexual interaction. This social information influences the observer´s own mate choice decision. Using the 3-D fish animations we want to understand what information (quality and quantity) is transmitted from the interacting fish to the observer to understand the mechanism of this fascinating mate choice strategy.