Dr. Andrea Ferretti

My main research interests lie in behavioral ecology and eco-physiology. My research focuses on physiological and behavioral strategies that individuals adopt to optimize energy management in challenging life-history stages (e.g. during development or migration) and in adverse environmental contexts. Particularly, I am interested in uncovering the role of sleep in energy conservation and whether it can be modulated in response to ecological and physiological variations in energy demand.

In my doctoral research at the Fusani Lab (University of Vienna), I investigated behavioral strategies adopted by migrating songbirds to manage energy reserves during stopover, with a particular focus on the impact of energy stores and predation risk on sleep. Through the integration of several techniques (behavioral analysis, thermal-imaging and respirometry), I demonstrated that songbirds modulate their sleep pattern and posture preference in accordance with the trade-off between energy consumption and predation risk. As a postdoc in the Avian Sleep Research Group, I will study if and how sleep is compatible with active locomotion in birds. Moreover, I will investigate whether the simultaneous occurrence of these behaviors is influenced by the variation in energy demand due to factors like growth, workload and environmental conditions.