Martin Wikelski: Investigating migratory patterns of wildlife

National Geographic Explorer and ecologist Martin Wikelski researches global migratory patterns, focusing on conservation, detection of disasters, disease spread, & global change.

March 25, 2021
3 min read

Martin Wikelski is director at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior based in Radolfzell and Konstanz, Germany, and professor of ornithology at the University of Konstanz. 

Martin Wikelski, National Geographic Explorer
Radio Tracking Fruit bats in the worlds biggest bat colony, Kasanka National Park, Zambia. Expedition of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology. Scientists include Max Planck director Dr. Martin Wikelski, and researchers Dr. Jakob Fahr and Dr. Roland Kays. Martin Wikelski releases trabsmittered bat.
PHOTOGRAPH BY C. ZIEGLER

He is currently investigating global migratory patterns in animals, with particular emphasis on conservation, detection of disasters, disease spread, and global change. 

He is leading the ICARUS (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space) initiative, aimed at installing the “Internet of Animals” and aided by a small-object tracking system at the International Space Station. He has authored more than 250 scientific publications.

Butterfly Surveillance | Explorers in the FieldEcologist and National Geographic Explorer Martin Wikelski and monarch expert Chip Taylor as they use electronic tags to learn more about this 5,000 mile, multigenerational journey.

Wikelski

is also a member of the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer. 

He received his Ph.D. at Bielefeld University in Germany and then did postdoc work at the University of Washington in Seattle and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. 

Wikelski was assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1998 to 2000, and then assistant and associate professor at Princeton University from 2000 to 2008. 


This Explorer's work is funded by the National Geographic Society