Anna Flamand

 Assistant Engineer

Cohabitation between avifauna and human activities: How to prevent collision risks?

Avian species living nearby road infrastructures could be involved in risky situations while they are flying like collisions with cars. I am currently working on this topic: various bird species (corvids, starling, raptors…) are present on a car circuit where collisions occur frequently. Risks are high for drivers but it causes also an important mortality of the species concerned. I am conducting a field session in order to determine the attractive factors of this area (via behavioural observations and movement tracking). After diagnosing the site occupation, we will suggest guidelines on how to keep these species away from the riskiest areas, and encourage them to only occupy the safest ones.

This project is done in collaboration with Valérie Dufour.

Past research

Conservation of the European hamster: The Life-Alister Project

The Life-Alister project has been established to preserve the European hamster, a threatened rodent. This program aims at improving the viability of this species in Alsace (France). Several actions are engaged in order to reach this objective and among them creating new development opportunities.  Following the example of many Europeans cities where hamsters are naturally implanted, we introduced hamsters in urban areas and studied the sustainability of this solution. My role in this project is  to write (1) recommendations intended to communities and urban planners  and (2) theoretical considerations about the regulatory development involved in this process .

How do horses (Equus caballus) represent the world?

Despite the major interest represented by horse as a hobby, little is known about his cognition. We conducted an experiment in order to understand how horses perceive the world better. More specifically, we aimed at assessing their ability to mentally represent objects they no longer see, a cognitive skill called object permanence. To do so, we tested if horses could find a reward hidden in one among two or three containers (with and without displacement of these containers). Our results suggested that horses might use perceptual cues or associative rules rather than an understanding of this physical event when we changed the location of hidden object.

Trösch, M.; Calandreau, L.; Nowak, R.; Flamand A.; Lansade, L. How do horses (Equus caballus) represent the world? A study on object permanence (submitted)

Study on pasture-reared horses: Which effect of housing conditions on performance?

Traditionally, horses with high level of performance are housed in boxes, separated from their conspecifics and the external environment. In this study, we focused on a horse breeding facility specialized in competition where animals are reared outside in groups. Do these conditions, closer from the horse natural way of life, have an influence on the physical state of these horses and on their performance in competition? In this breeding facility, my role was to observe horses behavior related to social interactions existing in these groups (focal and scan sampling).