2012
Award Recipient: Prof. Dr. Petra Quillfeldt

Prof. Dr. Petra Quillfeldt of the University of Giessen received
the Horst Wiehe Foundation Award in recognition of her many years of work on seabirds of the Southern Hemisphere.

Since 1995, Petra Quillfeldt has been studying storm petrels, petrels, shearwaters, and penguins, as well as Magellanic geese and cormorants in Antarctica and the Falkland Islands, and parakeets in Argentina.

The primary focus of her research is on the ecology of long-lived bird species and their response to changes in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Current climate change plays a particularly important role in this context. An important area of her work involves questions of food ecology, for which she combines direct diet analyses, radio telemetry, data loggers, stable isotopes, and fatty acid signatures. Another area of her research is molecular ecology and speciation in seabirds. In addition, Dr. Quillfeldt studies parasites as well as endocrinological and immunological issues. Her behavioral ecology studies of seabirds focus in particular on parent-chick interactions and include the hormonal regulation of behavior.

Ms. Quillfeldt’s work, with its multidisciplinary approaches, has greatly expanded our understanding of ecology, particularly regarding species in cold regions. It is also worth noting that her work has been incorporated into management and action plans as well as into the designation of “Important Bird Areas.”