Position: Assistant Professor
Email: jszym@amu.edu.pl
Phone: +48 61 829 5745
Room: 1.25
Research Interests
- learning and information use in wild animals (mainly birds) – cognitive mechanisms and ecological consequences
- ecological effects of mast seeding on forest ecosystems
Current Projects
- Social learning of risk recognition in wild birds (National Science Centre grant no. 2018/31/D/NZ8/00080, Principal Investigator)
- Information use in habitat selection decisions in songbirds
- Effects of mast seeding on population dynamics of forest birds
Completed Projects
- Behavioral mechanisms of habitat selection process in small songbirds: the Wood Warbler Phylloscopus sibilatrix as a case study (National Science Centre grant no. 2012/07/N/NZ8/00129; 2013-2016)
Career History
- 2016 – to date: Assistant Professor at the Population Ecology Research Unit, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University
- 2016: PhD in ecology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University
- 2012: MSc in biology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University
- 2010: BSc in biology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University
Honors & awards
- AMU scholarship for the most scientifically productive young research staff (2020)
- 4th Marcin Antczak Award for the most inspiring ornithological paper published in 2017 (2018)
- Team Award of the Rector of AMU for scientific achievements (2018)
- START scholarship awarded by the Foundadtion for Polish Science (2017)
- Ministry of Science and Higher Education Scholarship awarded in 2015
- Nomination for the 2nd Marcin Antczak Award for the most inspiring ornithological paper published in 2015
- Nomination for the 3rd Marcin Antczak Award for the most inspiring ornithological paper published in 2016
Classes
- Statistical Methods in Environmental Protection
- Ecological Modelling
- Statistical analysis of biomedical data
- Monitoring of wildlife populations
BSc projects
- Michalina Hertmanowska (2020) – Social learning of predator recognition in animals – current state of the art and applicability in animal conservation
2021
Szymkowiak J. 2021. Wood warblers learn to recognise mobbing calls of an unfamiliar species from heterospecific tutors. Animal Behaviour, 171: 1–11, DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.11.004
Bogdziewicz M., Szymkowiak J., Tanentzap A., Calama R., Marino S., Steele M.A., Seget B., Piechnik Ł., Żywiec M. 2021. Seed predation selects for reproductive variability and synchrony in perennial plants. New Phytologist, in press, DOI: 10.1111/nph.16835
2020
Bogdziewicz M., Szymkowiak J., Bonal R., Hacket-Pain A., Espelta J.M, Pesendorfer M., Grewling L., Kasprzyk I., Belmonte J., Kluska K., De Linares C., Peñuelas J., Fernández-Martinez M. 2020. What drives phenological synchrony? Warm springs advance and desynchronize flowering in trees. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 294: 108140, DOI: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2020.108140
Bogdziewicz M., Szymkowiak J., Calama R., Crone E.E., Espelta J.M., Lesica P., Marino S., Steele M.A. Tenhumberg B., Tyre A., Żywiec M., Kelly D. 2020. Does masting scale with plant size? High reproductive variability and low synchrony in small and unproductive individuals. Annals of Botany, 126: 971–979, DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcaa118
Pesendorfer M.B., Bogdziewicz M., Szymkowiak J., Borowski Z., Kantorowicz W., Espelta J.M., Fernández-Martinez M. 2020. Investigating the relationship between climate, stand age, and temporal trends in masting behavior of European forest trees. Global Change Biology, 26: 1654-1667, DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14945
2019
Szymkowiak J., Thomson R.L. 2019. Nest predator avoidance during habitat selection of a songbird varies with mast peaks and troughs. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 73: 91, DOI: 10.1007/s00265-019-2702-z
Szymkowiak J. 2019. On resolving the selective interspecific information use vs. owner aggression hypothesis dilemma—a commentary. acta ethologica, 22: 149-154, DOI: 10.1007/s10211-019-00317-7
Bogdziewicz M., Szymkowiak J., Fernández-Martinez M., Peñuelas J., Espelta J.M. 2019. The effects of local climate on the correlation between weather and seed production differ in two species with contrasting masting habit. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 268: 109-115, DOI: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2019.01.016
2017
Bogdziewicz M., Szymkowiak J., Kasprzyk I., Grewling Ł., Borowski Z., Borycka K., Kantorowicz W., Myszkowska D., Piotrowicz K., Ziemianin M., Pesendorfer M.B. 2017. Masting in wind-pollinated trees: system-specific roles of weather and pollination dynamics in driving seed production. Ecology, 98: 2618-2625, DOI: 10.1002/ecy.1951
Szymkowiak J., Thomson R.L., Kuczyński L. 2017. Interspecific social information use in habitat selection decisions among migrant songbirds. Behavioral Ecology, 28: 767-775, DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arx029
Szymkowiak J., Kuczyński L. 2017. Song rate as a signal of male aggressiveness during territorial contests in the wood warbler. Journal of Avian Biology, 48: 275-283, DOI: 10.1111/jav.00969
2016
Szymkowiak J., Thomson R.L., Kuczyński L. 2016. Wood warblers copy settlement decisions of poor quality conspecifics: support for the tradeoff between the benefit of social information use and competition avoidance. Oikos, 125: 1561-1569, DOI: 10.1111/oik.03052 (Editor’s Choice)
Bogdziewicz M., Szymkowiak J. 2016. Oak acorn crop and Google search volume predict Lyme disease risk in temperate Europe. Basic and Applied Ecology, 17: 300-307, DOI: 10.1016/j.baae.2016.01.002
Królikowska N., Szymkowiak J., Laidlaw R.A., Kuczyński L. 2016. Threat-sensitive anti-predator defence in precocial wader, the Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus. Acta Ethologica, 19: 163-171, DOI: 10.1007/s10211-016-0236-1
2015
Szymkowiak J., Kuczyński L. 2015. Avoiding predators in a fluctuating environment: responses of the wood warbler to pulsed resources. Behavioral Ecology, 26: 601-608, DOI: 10.1093/beheco/aru237
Szymkowiak J., Kuczyński L. 2015. Predation-related costs and benefits of conspecific attraction in songbirds – an agent-based approach. PLoS ONE, 10: e0119132, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0119132
2014
Szymkowiak J., Skierczyński M., Kuczyński L. 2014. Are buntings good indicators of agricultural intensity? Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 188: 192-197, DOI: 10.1016/j.agee.2014.02.037
Szymkowiak J., Królikowska N. 2014. Mechanizmy agregowania terytoriów lęgowych przez ptaki śpiewające. Kosmos 63: 45-53, PDF [in Polish with English abstract]
2013
Szymkowiak J. 2013. Facing uncertainty: how small songbirds acquire and use social information in habitat selection process? Springer Science Reviews, 1: 115-131, DOI: 10.1007/s40362-013-0012-9
External Activities
- Erasmus+ Coordinator at the Faculty of Biology, AMU
- member of the Scientific Council for Biological Sciences at Adam Mickiewicz University
- member of the Scientific Council of Institute of Environmental Biology (2018-2019)
- member of the European Ornithologists’ Union
Administrative Posts
- member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Environmental Biology, AMU