PhD Student (m/f/d) | Analysis of communication and coordination in animal groups

The Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior at its sites in Constance and Radolfzell offers an international, interdisciplinary, and collaborative environment that opens up unique research opportunities. The goal of our basic research is to develop a quantitative and predictive understanding of the decisions and movements of animals in their natural environment.

The Communication and Collective Movement Group at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior would like to fill a PhD Student position (m/f/d) - Analysis of Communication and Coordination in Animal Groups with a flexible starting date in summer / autumn 2027. This position is full-time and fully funded for a period of 4 years. The workplace will be in Konstanz, Germany.

We are seeking a PhD student with a quantitative background and enthusiasm for tackling biological questions to join our interdisciplinary team studying communication and collective behavior in animal groups. The student will develop a project based on movement, behavioral, and/or acoustic data collected from social animals in the wild using tracking collars and/or passive acoustic monitoring.

Background

Coordination is widespread across animal societies, ranging from collective movement to vocal turn-taking to collective action. In our work, we are using new tracking technology and computational modeling to study the dynamics of vocal communication and collective behavior in animal groups. Combining animal tracking with long-term behavioral observations, we hope to shed light on both unifying features underlying communication and coordination mechanisms across animal societies, and differences imposed by distinct socio-ecological constraints.

Project details

Research will involve designing and implementing quantitative analyses to answer questions about communication and/or collective behavior using large-scale datasets. Development of theoretical models may also be included depending on interest. The student will be expected to develop their own research questions, with support and guidance from an international team of collaborators. Because the main focus of the project will be on data analysis, limited fieldwork is envisioned. However, the student will have the opportunity to make a short-term visit to one or more field sites to gain insight into their study system(s).

Available datasets and study systems: The student will have access to a wealth of existing data, including high-resolution movement, acoustic, and behavioral tracking of entire social groups in the wild collected using tracking collars. Our main study systems are meerkats, white-nosed coatis, and spotted hyenas, and we have collected whole-group tracking datasets from all three of these species. Please see our website for more information on our study systems and available data: CoCoMo.

Potential project directions: The student will be expected to develop their own project in collaboration with the supervisor and research team. Projects should ideally make use of our existing datasets (see website), rather than focusing on new data collection.

Examples of possible projects include:

1. Vocal drivers of collective transitions: How do animal groups coordinate changes in activity state? This project would use data on the movements, vocalizations, and behaviors of entire social groups in the wild to explore how and why collective transitions occur - for example transitions from stopped to moving, changes in movement direction, or group splits and merges. The goal would be to reveal how individuals make behavioral decisions contingent on the behaviors and communication signals of their group mates, and how these decision-making rules scale up to produce transitions at the group level.
2. Social dynamics of sleep: Sleep is a fundamental need across animal taxa, and many animals sleep in groups - yet surprisingly little is known about animal sleep in the wild. This project would use data from collar-mounted accelerometers to explore the social dynamics of sleep in wild animal groups. We have second-by-second information on individual activity levels across full days and for entire social groups across all of our main study species, allowing us to explore how sleep patterns vary across individuals and over time, and how they are influenced by short- and long-term social factors.
3. Long-range signal cascades in animal populations: Long-distance vocalizations are common in social animals and are used in a variety of contexts, from territory advertisement to recruitment for collective defense. In many species, it has been reported that animals produce long-distance calls when they hear others calling; however, it is unknown whether these dyadic vocal interactions may give rise to longer-range information cascades that propagate across large spatial scales. In this highly exploratory project, the student would use grids of passive acoustic monitors to search for evidence of long-distance vocal cascades across different species. For this project, experience with deep learning is highly desirable, as vocalizations will need to be extracted from large, noisy bioacoustics datasets.
4. Propose your own question and analysis: We are also happy for students to bring their own questions and creative ideas in the broad realm of communication and collective behavior, using our extensive group tracking datasets.

Your qualifications

The ideal candidate should be enthusiastic about addressing biological questions using quantitative approaches. The project will involve analyzing large, complex datasets; thus, prior experience with programming (e.g., in R, Python, MATLAB, etc.) and an enthusiasm for tackling challenging computational problems are essential. The student will be expected to proactively develop and implement research ideas to move the project forward; thus, a high degree of independence is crucial. Given the collaborative nature of the project, it is also important that the student has strong interpersonal skills and is enthusiastic about working as part of an international and interdisciplinary team. Applicants should have a Master's degree in any scientific discipline, including biology, physics, mathematics, computer science or engineering. The working language of the group is English, and German language skills are not a requirement.

Our offer

The student will join the Communication and Collective Movement (CoCoMo) research group led by Dr. Ariana Strandburg-Peshkin and integrated within the Department for the Ecology of Animal Societies. They will work closely with a team of collaborators both within the department and via the “Communication and Coordination Across Scales” project. The University of Konstanz and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior together form a thriving research community representing a global hotspot for collective behavior and animal movement research, including the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour. It is also planned that the student will join the International Max Planck Research School for Quantitative Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution from lab to field (IMPRS-QBEE), a cooperative doctoral program between the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the University of Konstanz.

The position is fully funded for 4 years (TVöD salary scale E-13, 65%). The Max Planck Society endeavors to employ more severely disabled people. Applications of severely disabled persons are expressly welcome. The Max Planck Society strives for gender and diversity equality. We welcome applications from all backgrounds.

How to apply

Are you interested? Then we look forward to receiving your application by November 22, 2026 through our online portal. 

Please include the following documents: 

• Letter of motivation / research statement (2 pages) addressing the following points:
  • Research interests: Describe your main research interests, how they developed, and how they relate to the research we do in our group. (½ page)
  • Research proposal: Spend some time exploring our website and prior publications. Then, choose one of the potential project directions listed above and describe 1-2 specific biological questions you would like to ask or hypotheses you would like to test within the scope of the project. Explain the analytical approach(es) you would use to address your question(s). Please include a mock figure (can be hand-drawn) of what your results might look like, and an interpretation of your potential findings (1-2 pages). (Please note that this section is an opportunity for you to develop your ideas and demonstrate how you would address scientific questions with quantitative approaches. This is not meant as a full-fledged PhD proposal, and you will not be expected to carry out the exact project you propose should you join our team!)
  • Code example: Please provide an example of some code you have written, with a brief explanation of what it does (you can also link to a publicly accessible repository). The code does not have to relate to animal behavior, but it should be written by you and be something you can explain to others if needed.
  • AI Declaration: Please indicate if you used AI in drafting your application, and if so describe briefly how you used it.
• Curriculum vitae (CV)
• 2 letters of reference
• A sample of your scientific writing (e.g., publication or manuscript in prep, thesis, term paper, etc.)
• Official or unofficial academic transcripts (translated into English)

Questions about this position should be addressed to Dr. Ariana Strandburg-Pheskin (astrandburg@ab.mpg.de).