Oliver Höner

I am a senior scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin and head of the Hyena Project in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. I have been studying the behavioral ecology of spotted hyenas for 23 years using individual-based monitoring and sample collection of all 8 clans of the Ngorongoro hyena population.

I am passionate about mate choice, sexual conflict, predator-prey relationships, proximate and ultimate drivers of key fitness-related traits and processes, the adaptability of group-living carnivores to changes in their environment and human-carnivore coexistence.

Spotted hyenas are fascinating and socially highly competent animals and an ideal species to study questions in these areas of research. The population in the Ngorongoro Crater is of particular interest because of their key role for the well-being of this UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I have published work in the top peer-reviewed scientific journals (Nature, Nature Communications, Nature Ecology & Evolution, Science Advances, Journal of Animal Ecology, Methods in Ecology & Evolution and others).

September 2019