State-dependent life-history strategies: A long-term study on oystercatchers

The research described in this thesis is part of a long-term field study on free-living Oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus), on the Dutch Wadden Sea island of Schiermonnikoog.The study was started in 1983 by Jan Hulscher, and since then a lineage of PhDstudents has investigated life-history decisions in this long-lived bird species. Most of their work has focused on understanding individual variation in settlement decisions, partner choice and reproductive decisions. Their strategy to investigate these life-history decisions has been to combine detailed behavioral observation with a long-term dataset collected over many years, and to conduct critical experiments whenever possible. The research conducted in this thesis is aimed to be a continuation, and it investigates some of the questions which are the direct result of previous work. Furthermore, we will integrate the results from many of these studies to better understand why this breeding population is declining so rapidly in recent years.