December 2025
We are thrilled to see our project “Landfill foraging in migratory birds: pain or gain? (ECOTRAP)” featured in the newly published Vetmeduni journal! You can find the article on pages 16.17 (only in German). Many thanks to the PR office for helping us reach a wider audience 😊
November 2025
We are very much looking forward to having Neal Dawson with us 🙂
14 May 2025
Very happy to see our OA review “Life at New Extremes: Integrating Stress Physiology and the Bio-exposome in the Anthropocene” out in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 🙂
May 2025
Welcome to Simone Reiter and Anustup Bandyopadhyay in our group!
Simone is a veterinary student at Vetmeduni Vienna. During her internship with us, she will be working in the context of our ongoing FWF-funded project “Landfill foraging in migratory birds: pain or gain?” mostly together with Joanna Bialas, Marcin Tobolka (both at Poznań University of Life Sciences, Poland) and myself 🙂
Anustup has joined our team as a PhD student within the same FWF-funded project. His research focuses on investigating if and how parental foraging on landfills alters physiology and development of juvenile White storks. Further updates to come!
January 2025
Great start into the New Year! So thrilled to share our new paper in Ecology Letters on the multi-generational transmission of maternal breeding age factors on offspring telomere length, together with Winnie Boner, Kate Griffiths, Sherley Raveh, & Pat Monaghan. The paper is freely accessible 🙂
October 2024
Have you ever wondered how birds know when it is time to migrate? It remains an extremely fascinating, yet rather unresolved question that continues to attract the attention of many people…. from scientists to nature amateurs 🙂
Our new open access paper in Scientific Reports suggests that the gene expression modulation of physiological pathways in the brain related to energy transport may be key regulators allowing birds to migrate at the right time of the day and season!
April 2024
We wished all the best to Pietro (Semprebon) who already ended his internship with us and will soon join a research project at the Vogelwarte Sempach in Switzerland! Congratulations Pietro and all the best for your next adventures from the team!
January 2024
Our article on pre-migratory fattening and immunity is now out in Biology Open 🙂 Very well done to Zuzanna for the nice quail drawing, which was chosen as BioCover!
December 2023
Valeria had a lovely chat with Astrid Kuffner about her academic journey to date and thanks her for putting together this wee article (in German). Thank you to the Vetmeduni for this fantastic opportunity, and to Michael Bernkopf for the pictures (especially those of the quail that are not the most “photogenic” bird, but he just did it!).
September 2023
Welcome to Pietro Semprebon who joined our team for an internship funded by Fondazione Ing. Aldo Gini to support foreign Studies for Italian citizens. Pietro will mostly be working on our current project on physiological turnovers of seasonal phenotypic transitions in migratory birds using the common quail as our study species.
21/09/2020
Welcome to Zuzanna Zielińska (MSc student, Institute of Zoology, University of Life Sciences, Poznan, Poland) who joined the Fusani lab for an internship. She will mainly be working with me (and the wonderful quails 🙂 ) on the FWF Lise Meitner project.
20/07/2020
Early view of our article where we originated a high quality de novo transcriptome for the migratory Common quail
14/07/2020
Comung up! Our paper on the Common quail brain transcriptome de novo assembly has just been accepted for publication in Data in Brief!
16/05/2020
New results on the impact of forest logging on stress physiology in tropical birds just published in Functional Ecology led by Simone Messina et al
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1365-2435.13586
My study on the impact of forest logging on stress physiology of birds in Borneo is out in @FunEcology!
Great to work with @DavidZool @V_Marasco @CossetCindy #ornithology #conservation
Glucocorticoids link forest type to local abundance in tropical birdshttps://t.co/vKymPj2Xz1— Simone Messina (@SimoneMessina87) May 15, 2020
05/05/2020
Coming up: accepted publication led by Messina et al in Functional Ecology demonstrating links between stress hormones, forest type and local abundance in tropical birds!
06/04/2020
As every spring, when I see the first fledgling of the year jumping and flying around in that typical inexperienced mode I become emotional. This year, today, it was even more special and it reminded me why I had always been curious and passionate about discovering the secrets of life.
18/03/2020
Due to the current developments of COVID-19, ISAE2020 organisers annouced that the Conference has been post-poned until next year.
02/03/2020
Abstract submission deadline at the coming ISAE2020 Edinburgh has been extended until 20th April: http://www.avianendo2020.efconference.co.uk/
14/02/2020
Have you noticed that there are only 2 weeks left to submit your abstract at the coming ISAE2020 (International Symposium on Avian Endocrinology 2020) in Edinburgh?!
www.avianendo2020.efconference.co.uk/
13/10/2019
Very happy about our new paper just out in Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Intergenerational effects on offspring telomere length: interactions among maternal age, stress exposure and offspring sex https://t.co/FCP1YxyNaX #maternal ageing #maternal stress #evolution #telomeres@IBAHCM
— Valeria Marasco (@V_Marasco) October 13, 2019
25/08/2019
Just polishing up my talk at the 12th European Ornithologists’ Union Congress 2019 (EOU2019) at the Symposium “From genes to behaviour: what mechanistic studies can tell us about migration”! (page 14 in the detailed programme). If you are interested in bird migration and mechanisms, join the Symposium!
11/04/2019
Our Perspective paper by Huber et al on Leokocyte Coping Capacity and wildlife welfare is now published in its final form and it is open access
28/03/2019
Very glad to see that our perspective paper by Huber et al on Leokocyte Coping Capacity and wildlife welfare has been accepted – you can already access the pre-proofed version here
21/03/2019
Submitted my abstract for the coming European Ornithologist’s Union Congress 2019, 26-30th August 2019, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Very exciting program this year – have a look at the plenary speakers and symposia here
15/10/2018
Article by Susanne Strnadl in Der Standard about our latest microsatellite paper on common quail https://t.co/6dgYGG4EJD @KLIVV @VetmeduniVienna
— Valeria Marasco (@V_Marasco) October 16, 2018
18/09/2018
Off to France to visit Frederic Angelier in Chize’ at CNRS Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé – really looking forward to visit his lab and team!
18/09/2018
Vetmeduni PressRelease on our latest paper showing lack of introgression of Japanese quail in my study population of Common quail is now out
27/08/2018
And so the latest International Congress of Ornithology (IOC2018) in Vancouver is now over! My speed talk (4 min!) was a good exercise to keep things simple…. but I was glad to have 30 min at the e-poster session ! Lots of great talk in general and very good networking for future collaborations.
#IOCongress2018 if you are interested in mechanisms underlying phenotypic flexibility linked to migratory behaviour, please visit my e-poster today,16:00-16:30, station 8!
— Valeria Marasco (@V_Marasco) August 22, 2018
13/08/2018
Had really a great time at the European Conference on Behavioural Biology (ECBB) 2018 in Liverpool! Some great talks at our symposium (organised by M. Larriva, K.A. Spencer and my self) which led to fruitful discussions on the applicability of new techniques to study animal behaviour, from molecular genome-wide neuroendocrine techniques to advanced tools to track animals’ activity and movements.
@ECBB2018 bringing the love from two different symposia @KAS_Spencer @SuzanneCMills @robertslab pic.twitter.com/lnw2UbeuC8
— Valeria Marasco (@V_Marasco) August 10, 2018
03/08/2018
Our paper “Lack of introgression of Japanese quail in a captive population of Common quail” is now out. Please use this link if you are interested in reading it.
18/07/2018
Great news today. Our paper “Lack of introgression of Japanese quail in a captive population of Common quail” has been accepted for publication in European Journal of Wildlife Research. Looking forward to receive the proofs and made it available open access!
26/06/2018
Contributed to the MSCA fellows meeting in Vienna organised by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).
Was really cool to interact with other MSCA fellows, many of which were women!
08/05/2018
Today at the “Social brain symposium 2018” at UniVie Campus (University of Vienna). Opening the event the fantastic talk by Hans Hofmann (University of Texas at Austin, USA) on “Evolutionary Neuroscience and Functional Genomics of the Social Brain”.
Consider having a look at the full symposium program!
30/04/2018
Abstract submission deadline for ECBB2018 has been extended until Friday 4th May – so still few days left to submit your abstract to our Symposium S5 “Emerging techniques in the study of behavioural plasticity”.
April 2018
Looking forward to our symposium at the ECBB2018 in Liverpool on “Emerging techniques in the study of behavioural plasticity” – full program symposia here.
Abstract submission deadline 27th April – submit your abstract today!
09/02/2018
a commentary on our latest zebra finch paper by Sofia Jain-Schlaepfer –https://t.co/RQDFL9R5PM
— Valeria Marasco (@V_Marasco) February 12, 2018
Illustration by Erin Walsh; Email: ewalsh.sci@gmail.com
03/01/2018
Great start for the new year!
New paper out showing that repeated exposure to environmental stress can shape the pattern of investment between reproduction and survival https://t.co/TcKCwcr5TF
— Valeria Marasco (@V_Marasco) January 3, 2018
October 2017
Very good talks, meetings and discussion at the 2017 Telomere Dynamics Conference in Edinburgh (Scotland), 3-5th October.
PALS members enjoying the 2017 Telomere Dynamics Conference this week in Edinburgh, Scotland. pic.twitter.com/nbECvpOnLx
— UofGpals (@UofGpals) October 5, 2017
29/09/2017
Very happy to contribute to the The European Researchers’ Night in Vienna
Have a look at the program and come along if you can!
23/06/2017
Many congratulations to Filipa Paiva Vilar Queirós who successfully defended her thesis on 23/06/2017!
01/05/2017
Our paper on environmental challenging conditions, oxidative stress and longevity is now in press in Mechanisms of Aging and Development You can already access the uncorrected proof here
04/04/2017
Off to Germany for participating at the Genetics of Migration workshop at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön!
30/03/2017
Biology dictionary! Very interesting project recently started up by Chris Chen and collaborators with lots of useful explanations and examples of biology terms to students, teachers and researchers. Definitely worth having a look!
16/03/2017
Gave a talk today at the Behavioural Biology seminar series at the Department of Behavioural Biology at the University of Vienna (Austria). Thank you to Virginie Canoine for the invitation!
Discussion time was very constructive and made new contacts for potential future collaborations!
08/03/2017
Gave a tak at the seminar series in the Department of Integrative Biology and Evolution, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. Thank you very much to Walter Arnold for the invitation!
Had a great time and question time opened very constructive discussions about fitness, life history strategies, and stress ecology with colleagues.
January 2017
My adventure at the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna) has started!
Lots of things to set up for my experiments, feeling so excited, stay tuned for new research in the migratory Common quail!
29/10/2016: a day to remember!
I was awarded the “Italy Made Me” Award 2016 in Life Sciences (UK)! Super cool day for me!
Physiological ecology of life histories 