Posts by Olga Krips

The circle is complete: Mites, trichomes, walking speed and EthoVision XT

In my previous life as Entomologist, I was a pioneer in video tracking with extremely small creatures. I worked with mites, which are about 0.5 mm in size. In fact, I was an overall pioneer in video tracking.

How to unravel the long-term memory of cuttlefish: automated video tracking

Did you know that cuttlefish have three hearts, have such an advanced vision that they can see what’s behind them, and can count to five?

Video tracking makes bird watching much easier

Everyone with children knows the phenomenon that what is good for a child is not always the best for a parent. The same counts for birds.

Ticking clocks – tides and activity peaks in American horseshoe crabs

Recently, I came across an interesting paper in which American horseshoe crabs were video-tracked to investigate their internal clocks.

Flower preference in solitary bees

Mason bees are fascinating and friendly creatures. Tibor Bukovinszky and his colleagues investigated how their foraging behavior affects their offspring.

Dynamic winners and sluggish losers

We all know the phenomenon: some have it all. Look around a classroom and you see immediately who gets all the attention and who doesn’t, who are “winners”, and who are “losers”. Are we born this way, or do we learn it?

To be ravenous or to be social

Prosocial behavior, a voluntary behavior to benefit another, is an interesting concept from an evolutionary point of view. At first sight it may seem logical to be social.

Video tracking for high-throughput screening of plant resistance to thrips

A thrips is a tiny insect that can have a not-so-tiny effect on plants. A lot of research is currently carried out on how to get rid of these creatures.

High-throughput screening of plant lines for resistance to pest insects

The EthoGenomics project focused on screening for host plant resistance to insect pest species. Video tracking provides the possibility to scale up the screening method largely.

Does pesticide resistance make malaria mosquitoes “smarter”?

In one of my previous blog posts, I wrote about the success of insecticide treated bed nets in preventing malaria. In the past five years, mortality from malaria has dropped with 60%.

Bigger is not always better: hypothesis testing in sexual evolution

Sexual selection can lead to fascinating phenomena. We are all familiar with the fabulous color display of male peacocks to attract females. Less well known, but definitely not less interesting, are stalk-eyed flies.

A new approach in the battle against malaria

Bed nets treated with insecticide (ITNs) greatly decrease malaria illness and mortality. ITNs can decrease infant mortality from all causes by more than 20%.