IOU WEBINAR SERIES: THE BARN OWL REPLACED THE DOVE OF PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

YOSSI LESHEM

Professor Emeritus, School of Zoology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University

Prof. Leshem has been researching bird migration and raptor breeding ecology for 5 decades. His doctoral research at Tel Aviv University, conducted in cooperation with the Israel Air Force, reduced aircraft-bird collisions by 76%, thus saving the national budget $1.5 billion. Yossi developed an online scientific educational curriculum (www.birds.org.il) that is currently taught in approximately 450 schools. He spearheaded the national effort to use barn owls as biological pest control agents in agriculture, significantly reducing the use of pesticides, and led an extensive research project in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute at Radolfzell to track migrating storks, using satellite transmitters.

ALEXANDRE ROULIN

Full Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne;

As a full professor at the University of Lausanne, my main scientific interests are (1) the evolution, maintenance and adaptive function of variation in melanin-based coloration and (2) social interactions inside the family (parent-offspring conflict; sibling competition). Being an evolutionary ecologist, my research group uses a wide range of methods from different fields, such as behavioural ecology, genetics, quantitative genetics, population genetics/genomics, population dynamics, etc. I mainly use the cosmopolitan barn owl as a model organism. Based on ecological research performed in this species, we recently started to expand our interest into molecular evolution and biomedical research.