1. Reduction of phenotypic plasticity in behaviour by early experience: functional consequences of an adaptive mechanism? 2. Paternity Plattform 3. Endocrinology Plattform

中心项目：中心项目的作用是协调研究单位内的博士项目，组织小组之间的旅行、研讨会系列、大师班、年度静修、方法课程和研讨会。它允许学生在小组的另一个实验室花一些时间进行联合实验和方法转移，从而缓解和刺激小组之间的互动。还将通过中央项目组织通过在会议上作陈述来提高研究在国际上的知名度。此外，该项目还包括两个方法平台：比勒费尔德的遗传亲子鉴定和明斯特的内分泌分析。为了确保数据的安全性和群体之间的可比性，将建立一个中央关系数据库，供所有群体使用。亲子平台：比勒费尔德大学行为生物学教授的遗传学实验室将根据10-20个多态微卫星确定与豚鼠、豚鼠、田鼠和斑马雀共事的群体的父子关系。各自的微卫星在我们的实验室建立。内分泌学平台：在我们位于明斯特大学的内分泌学实验室，我们通过放射免疫分析和竞争性酶免疫分析(EIA)常规测定不同激素的血浆浓度。为配合课题组不同的研究项目，我们将测定豚鼠、野生鱼子馆和斑马雀的血浆皮质醇、睾酮和孕酮的浓度。此外，我们将与维也纳兽医大学生物化学研究所Rupert Palme教授合作，测定野生豚鼠、实验室小鼠和野外田鼠粪便中皮质酮和睾酮代谢物的浓度。

Central project: The central project serves to coordinate the PhD program within the Research Unit, organize travel among groups, seminar series, master classes, a yearly retreat, method courses and a workshop. It eases and stimulates interaction among groups by allowing students to spend some time in another laboratory of the group for joint experiments and method transfer. International visibility of the research through presentations at conferences will also be organized through the central project. In addition, this project comprises two method platforms, genetic paternity determination, in Bielefeld and Endocrinological analysis in Münster. To insure data safety and comparability among groups a central relational data base will be set up and used by all groups.Paternity Platform: The genetics Iaboratory at the chair of Behavioural Biology, University of Bielefeld, will determine paternities based on 10-20 polymorphic microsatellites for the groups working with guinea pigs, cavies, field voles and zebra finches. The respective microsatellites are established in our lab.Endocrinology Platform: In our Endocrinology Iaboratory at the University of Münster, we routinely determine plasma concentrations of different hormones by radioimmunoassay and competitive enzymimmunoassays (EIA). We will determine plasma concentrations of Cortisol, testosterone and progesterone in guinea pigs, wild cavies and zebra finches for different projects of our research group. Furthermore, we will determine concentrations of corticosterone and testosterone metabolites in the faeces of wild cavies, laboratory mice and field voles in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Rupert Palme, Institute for Biochemistry, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.