A centrally located “bistro corner” on the first floor provides the perfect place for a coffee break. The building can be accessed without getting rained on through a roofed passageway leading from the department’s office building. It is one of the few new buildings on the grounds of the institute, and also its centerpiece. The zebra finches are kept, for example, in House 6b, an elongated building clad with natural timber panels. The zebra finch – an advantageous avian model The department has between 800 and 900 zebra finches, and the total kept by the institute is probably around 2,000. The researchers can thus keep a large number of the birds in a relatively small space. The little chirpers feel safe and well only in the company of other birds. The crucial factor is that, “Because they are colony breeders, we can breed them successfully under good conditions in the laboratory,” explains the neurobiologist. “They have a few disadvantages, but these are clearly outweighed by their advantages,” says Gahr, who has already worked with other songbirds, chickens and various reptile species in the course of his career. The decision to focus on zebra finches, which weigh only ten grams, was no coincidence: the zebra finch is the avian species most commonly kept in laboratories all over the world. Gahr’s team developed most of the technology needed for this operation themselves. Along with video recordings, the acoustic and neuronal recordings are made on an almost continuous basis – total surveillance, so to speak. For the purpose of this research, the Dutchman with the long silver hair launched what can only be described as large-scale wire(less)tapping of the department’s zebra finches: he and his colleagues combine the listening of the calls and songs of the small finches with the telemetric recording of their brain waves. Gahr has known ter Maat, an experienced electrophysiologist, since his time at the University of Amsterdam. To do this, the research group headed by his colleague Andries ter Maat uses methods that involve the comprehensive and extensive use of observation technology that would make any secret service proud. “We record the activity in the brain so that we can link the molecular mechanisms at the cellular level with the animal’s behavior,” says Gahr. They also study how both genes and learning behavior influence a bird’s typical song and calls. The researchers in Seewiesen not only focus on the neuroanatomy of the typical areas of the songbird brain, such as the song nuclei, which are located in the forebrain (and include the nucleus robustus arcopallii, or RA for short), but even examine individual neurons at work when a male bewitches a female with his song or a young bird learns the basics of social chirping. Behind this activity lie very concrete interests: male birds learn their song to impress females and to enhance their reproductive prospects. With the help of a wide array of methods from the fields of electrophysiology, molecular biology and behavioral biology, Gahr and his team aim to find out what goes on in a bird’s head when it sings or hears the chirping of its conspecifics. In the meantime, the 50-year-old scientist, who was born in the Palatinate region of Germany, can once again concentrate on his actual research objective: unlocking the secret of birdsong. A fitting celebration in honor of its completion is being planned for next summer. “Apart from the outer walls, hardly a single stone remains in place,” he says. Since his appointment, Gahr, together with fellow Director Bart Kempenaers, has mainly been occupied with the planning and restructuring of the entire institute complex and the simultaneous establishment of a new research department. It is steeped in history: many famous behavioral scientists have researched here, the most prominent being Konrad Lorenz. The institute, formerly known as the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology and located in a forest between Lakes Starnberg and Ammer, has just emerged from four years of reorganization and renovation. For the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, southwest of Munich, a period of radical change has come to an end. The fireplace by the door originates from von Holst’s time, but there is little else that recalls this great era of classical behavioral biology. When they are unpacked, his office – the room in which renowned behavioural physiologist Erich von Holst once lived and worked – will be fully set up and ready for work. “Just these three and the move is complete,” he says. Manfred Gahr apologizes for the slight disarray.
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