Benedikt Gehr

I’m an empirical biologist with a general interest in spatial ecology and predator-prey theory. More specifically, I want to understand how extrinsic environmental constraints act together with intrinsic individual traits in shaping animal space use patterns and how this eventually translates into individual differences in performance. I’m fascinated how animals tradeoff between resource acquisition and risk avoidance, depending on their behavioral state and the environmental context and how in the end this affects their survival and reproduction. More recently I have become interested in animal cognition and the question why animals keep home ranges. Restricting its movements to familiar space can be beneficial for knowing the distribution of resources. However, much less attention has been given to the role of familiarity in avoiding different sources of mortality risks. I want to find out how familiarity relates to different causes of mortality and how this affects the emergence of home range behavior.

Education and professional positions

• Couriot O., Hewison AJM., Saïd S., Cagnacci F., Chamaillé-Jammes S., Linnell JDC., Mysterud A., Peters W., Urbano F., Heurich M., Kjellander P., Nicoloso S., Berger A., Sustr P., Kroeschel M., Soennichsen L., Sandfort R., Gehr B., Morellet N. (2018). Truly sedentary? The multi-range tactic as a response to resource heterogeneity and unpredictability in a large herbivore. Oecologia:Epub ahead of print. DOI: 10.1007/s00442-018-4131-5
• Gehr B., Hofer EJ., Ryser A., Vimercati E., Vogt K., Keller LF. (2018). Evidence for nonconsumptive effects from a large predator in an ungulate prey? Behavioral Ecology:ary031. DOI: 10.1093/beheco/ary031
• Tucker MA., Böhning-Gaese K., Fagan WF., Fryxell JM., Van Moorter B., Alberts SC., Ali AH., Allen AM., Attias N., Avgar T., Bartlam-Brooks B. Bayarbaatar H., Belant JL., Bertassoni A., Beyer D., Bidner L., van Beest FM., Blake S., Blaum N., Bracis C., Brown D., de Bruyn PJN., Cagnacci F., Calabrese JM., Camilo-Alves C., Chamaillé-Jammes S., Chiaradia A., Davidson SC., Dennis T., DeStefano S., Diefenbach, D., Douglas-Hamilton I., Fennessy J., Fichtel C., Fiedler W., Fischer C., Fischhoff I., Fleming CH., Ford A., Fritz S., Gehr B., Goheen JR., Gurarie E., Hebblewhite M., Heurich M., Hewison AJM., Hof C., Hurme E., Isbel LA. et al. (2018). Moving in the Anthropocene: Global reductions in terrestrial mammalian movements. Science 359 (6374): 466-469. DOI: 10.1126/science.aam9712
• Gehr B., Hofer EJ., Ryser A., Vimercati E., Vogt K., Keller LF. (2017). Hunting-mediated predator facilitation results in superadditive mortality of European roe deer by Eurasian lynx. Ecology & Evolution. DOI: 10.1002/ece3.3642
• Gehr B., Hofer EJ., Muff S., Ryser A., Vimercati E., Vogt K., Keller LF. (2017). A landscape of coexistence for a large predator in a human dominated landscape. Oikos 126: 1389-1399. DOI: 10.1111/oik.04182