Mathilde Martin, PhD
Postdoctoral researcher
University of Zürich
Animal behaviour – Acoustic communication – Movement ecology
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My research focuses on acoustic communication in group-living terrestrial and marine mammals. I am interested in deciphering the role of vocal signals in the establishment and the modulation of social interactions and collective behaviours. To collect data, I use different field techniques: active recording of animals’ vocalisations, passive acoustic monitoring, or deployment of embedded acoustic tags on animals. My approach involves the analysis of acoustic signals and behavioural data, but also the use of experiments such as playbacks, and sometimes combines acoustic data with movement data.
I was recently awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Fyssen Foundation to join the ‘Communication and Cognition in Social Mammals’ research group at the University of Zürich. My postdoc project aims to investigate how meerkats close calls help maintain group cohesion during foraging. In this work, I use multi-sensor collars (audio and GPS) to understand the link between the production of vocalisations and the dynamics of group movement in foraging meerkat groups.
During my PhD, I studied the acoustic communication network in the Cape fur seal. I was interested in describing the species’ vocal repertoire, evaluating the degree of individuality in the vocalisations and investigating individual vocal recognition at several levels of the network. I also assessed the impact of anthropogenic noise on the behaviour of Cape fur seals at different study sites in Namibia and South Africa. For more information see here.
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