David Bierbach
Postdoctoral researcher
mail: david.bierbach@hu-berlin.de
David Bierbach is a biologist working on topics that range from individual differences to large-scale collective behaviors. He integrates field-based studies with analytical and experimental approaches in the laboratory. Through his highly interdisciplinary work, he has developed several experimental techniques to study animal behavior in the most standardized ways, from video playbacks and computer animations to the use of bio-mimetic robots. His main research objectives are tropical freshwater fish like clonal mollies (Poecilia formosa), guppies (P. reticulata) or sulfur mollies (P. sulphuraria). At SCIoI, he is investigating how fish use anticipation in their social interactions. The overall aim is to implement this knowledge to build better bio-mimetic robots and social interaction algorithms.
He mainly works in Project 41. Further more he supports Project 10 and co-supervises two projects dealing with information processing and information spread in larger collectives (SCIoI Project 11 and SCIoI Project 12). He is also a team member of Project 21, and Project 58.
SCIoI Publications:
Scherer, U., Ehlman, S. M., Bierbach, D., Krause, J., & Wolf, M. (2023). Reproductive individuality of clonal fish raised in near-identical environments and its link to early-life behavioral individuality. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43069-6
Scherer, U., Laskowki, K., Kressler, M., Ehlman, S. M., Wolf, M., & Bierbach, D. (2023). Perceived predation risk affects the development of among-individual behavioral variation in a naturally clonal freshwater fish. BioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.11.25.568653
Pacher, K., Hernández-Román, N., Juarez-Lopez, A., Jiménez-Jiménez, J. E., Lukas, J., Sevinchan, Y., Krause, J., Arias-Rodríguez, L., & Bierbach, D. (2024). Thermal tolerance in an extremophile fish from Mexico is not affected by environmental hypoxia. Biology Open. https://doi.org/10.1242/bio.060223
Musiolek, L., Hafner, V. V., Krause, J., Landgraf, T., & Bierbach, D. (2020). Robofish as Social Partner for Live Guppies. Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems, 270–274. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64313-3_26
Makowicz, A. M., Bierbach, D., Richardson, C., & Hughes, K. A. (2022). Cascading indirect genetic effects in a clonal vertebrate. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 289(1978). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.0731
Makowicz, A. M., Bierbach, D., Richardson, C., & Hughes, K. A. (2022). Cascading indirect genetic effects in a clonal vertebrate. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.0731
Lukas, J., Kalinkat, G., Miesen, F. W., Landgraf, T., Krause, J., & Bierbach, D. (2021). Consistent Behavioral Syndrome Across Seasons in an Invasive Freshwater Fish. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.583670
Lukas, J., Romanczuk, P., Klenz, H., Klamser, P., Arias Rodriguez, L., Krause, J., & Bierbach, D. (2021). Acoustic and visual stimuli combined promote stronger responses to aerial predation in fish. Behavioral Ecology, arab043. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arab043
Lukas, J., Auer, F., Goldhammer, T., Krause, J., Romanczuk, P., Klamser, P., Arias-Rodriguez, L., & Bierbach, D. (2021). Diurnal Changes in Hypoxia Shape Predator-Prey Interaction in a Bird-Fish System. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.619193
Lukas, J., Krause, J., Träger, A. S., Piotrowski, J. M., Romanczuk, P., Sprekeler, H., Arias-Rodriguez, L., Krause, S., Schutz, C., & Bierbach, D. (2023). Multispecies collective waving behaviour in fish. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0069
Lu, Y., Bierbach, D., Ormanns, J., Warren, W. C., Walter, R. B., & Schartl, M. (2021). Fixation of allelic gene expression landscapes and expression bias pattern shape the transcriptome of the clonal Amazon molly. Genome Research. https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.268870.120
Laskowski, K. L., Seebacher, F., Habedank, M., Meka, J., & Bierbach, D. (2021). Two Locomotor Traits Show Different Patterns of Developmental Plasticity Between Closely Related Clonal and Sexual Fish. Frontiers in Physiology, 12, 740604. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.740604
Laskowski, K., Bierbach, D., Jolles, J., Doran, C., & Wolf, M. (2022). The emergence and development of behavioral individuality in clonal fish. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34113-y
Landgraf, T., Gebhardt, G. H. W., Bierbach, D., Romanczuk, P., Musiolek, L., Hafner, V. V., & Krause, J. (2020). Animal-in-the-Loop: Using Interactive Robotic Conspecifics to Study Social Behavior in Animal Groups. Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-control-061920-103228
Landgraf, T., Moenck, H. J., Gebhardt, G. H. W., Weimar, N., Hocke, M., Maxeiner, M., Musiolek, L., Krause, J., & Bierbach, D. (2020). Socially competent robots: adaptation improves leadership performance in groups of live fish. arXiv:2009.06633 [cs]. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2009.06633
Klamser, P. P., Gómez-Nava, L., Landgraf, T., Jolles, J. W., Bierbach, D., & Romanczuk, P. (2021). Impact of Variable Speed on Collective Movement of Animal Groups. arXiv:2106.00959 [physics, q-bio]. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphy.2021.715996
Jolles, J. W., Weimar, N., Landgraf, T., Romanczuk, P., Krause, J., & Bierbach, D. (2020). Group-level patterns emerge from individual speed as revealed by an extremely social robotic fish. Biology Letters, 16(9), 20200436. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0436
Gómez-Nava, L., Lange, R. T., Klamser, P. P., Lukas, J., Arias-Rodriguez, L., Bierbach, D., Krause, J., Sprekeler, H., & Romanczuk, P. (2023). Fish shoals resemble a stochastic excitable system driven by environmental perturbations. Nature Physics. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01916-1
Ehlman, S., Scherer, U., Bierbach, D., Francisco, F., Laskowski, K., Krause, J., & Wolf, M. (2023). Leverging big data to uncover the eco-evolutionary factors shaping behavioural development. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.2115
Doran, C., Bierbach, D., Lukas, J., Klamser, P., Landgraf, T., Klenz, H., Habedank, M., Arias-Rodriguez, L., Krause, S., Romanczuk, P., & Krause, J. (2022). Fish waves as emergent collective antipredator behavior. Current Biology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.11.068
Demandt, N., Bierbach, D., Kurvers, R. H. J. M., Krause, J., Kurtz, J., & Scharsack, J. P. (2021). Parasite infection impairs the shoaling behaviour of uninfected shoal members under predator attack. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-021-03080-7
Bierbach, D., Krause, S., Romanczuk, P., Lukas, J., Arias-Rodriguez, L., & Krause, J. (2020). An interaction mechanism for the maintenance of fission–fusion dynamics under different individual densities. PeerJ, 8, e8974. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8974
Bierbach, D., Mönck, H. J., Lukas, J., Habedank, M., Romanczuk, P., Landgraf, T., & Krause, J. (2020). Guppies Prefer to Follow Large (Robot) Leaders Irrespective of Own Size. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.00441
Bierbach, D., Wenchel, R., Gehrig, S., Wersing, S., O’Connor, O. L., & Krause, J. (2021). Male Sexual Preference for Female Swimming Activity in the Guppy (Poecilia reticulata). Biology, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.3390/biology10020147
Bierbach, D., Francisco, F., Lukas, J., Landgraf, T., Maxeiner, M., Romanczuk, P., Musiolek, L., Hafner, V. V., & Krause, J. (2021). Biomimetic robots promote the 3Rs Principle in animal testing. ALIFE 2021: The 2021 Conference on Artificial Life. https://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00375
Bierbach, D., Gómez-Nava, L., Francisco, F. A., Lukas, J., Musiolek, L., Hafner, V. V., Landgraf, T., Romanczuk, P., & Krause, J. (2022). Live fish learn to anticipate the movement of a fish-like robot. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/ac8e3e