Paläoanthropologie

Dr. Franziska Wegdell

Function: Postdoctoral Researcher


Universität Tübingen
Institut für Naturwissenschaftliche Archäologie, Abt. Paläoanthropologie
Rümelinstr. 23
72070 Tübingen
Germany
franziska.wegdellspam prevention@ifu.uni-tuebingen.de


Raum 425


Consulting hours:
by arrangement
 

About

Franziska Wegdell is a behavioural biologist and her research is driven by a fundamental question: 
how and why do animals communicate? 

To answer this question, she combines empirical fieldwork with analytical approaches. Specifically, she has investigated ontogenetic communicative development, production and usage of vocalisations, and auditory learning abilities within primates. 

In her postdoctoral research, financed by a scholarship from the Stiftung Mensch und Tier, she studies the extent of plasticity in the vocal and multimodal communication of bonobos by comparing wild and sanctuary-raised bonobos.

Links

ResearchGateGoogle ScholarPathways to Language

 

Academic and professional trajectory

2025
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Tübingen

AG Pathways to Language, Palaeoanthropology lab
Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen

2024
Postdoctoral Researcher

Communication and Cognition Group
University of Zurich

2024
Promotion in Evolutionsbiologie

University of Zurich
Supervisor: Prof Dr. Simon W. Townsend

2019
Wissenschaftliche Managerin

Kokolopori Research Station
Democratic Republic of the Congo

2017
Master of Science in Verhaltensbiologie

University of Göttingen
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Julia Fischer

2014
Bachelor of Science in in Biologie- Spezialisierung: Neuro- and Verhaltensbiologie

University of Göttingen
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Julia Fischer

Awards, Grants & Scholarships

2025

Postdoc Stipend from the “Stiftung Mensch und Tier - Freiburg”

2024

GRC Short Grant for UZH Bioacoustics Community

2024

A.H. Schultz-Stiftung for research stay at Pan Lab, Harvard University

2023

Travel Grant GRC UZH for research stay at Pan Lab, Harvard University

2023

Travel Grant NCCR for conference 

2022

GRC Grant for UZH Bioacoustics Community

2022

NCCR Evolving Language “top-up” Grant for fieldwork

2014

Christian-Vogel Fund from the “Gesellschaft für Primatologie” for fieldwork

Selected Publications

Selceted recent Publications

Wegdell, F., Schamberg, I., Berthet, M., Rothacher, Y., Dellwo, V., et al. (2025) 
An updated vocal repertoire of wild adult bonobos (Pan paniscus). 
PLOS ONE 20(9): e0330250.

 

Wegdell, F.*, Fryns, C.*, Schick, J.*, Nellissen, L., Laporte, M., Surbeck, M., van Noordwijk, M., Masi, S., Hellwig, B., Willems, E., Zuberbühler, K. ‡, van Schaik, C.P.‡, Stoll, S.‡, Townsend, S.W.‡ (2025)
The Evolution of Infant-directed Communication: Comparing Vocal Input across all Great Apes. 
Science Advances 11, eadt7718(2025)

Wegdell, F.*, Schick, J.*, Fryns, C.*, Laporte, M., Zuberbühler, K., van Schaik, C.P.‡, Townsend, S.W.‡, Stoll, S.‡ (2022). 
The function and evolution of child-directedcommunication. PLoS Biology, 20(5). 

Fischer, J., Wegdell, F., Trede, F., Dal Pesco, F., & Hammerschmidt, K. (2020). 
Vocal convergence in a multi-level primate society: insights into the evolution of vocallearning. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 287(1941), 20202531.

Samuni, L., Wegdell, F., & Surbeck, M. (2020). 
Behavioural diversity of bonobo prey preference as a potential cultural trait. Elife, 9, e59191

Wegdell, F., Hammerschmidt, K., & Fischer, J. (2019). 
Conserved alarm calls but rapid auditory learning in monkey responses to novel flying objects. Nature ecology & evolution, 3(7), 1039-1042. 

*,‡ these authors contributed equally

Funded through the
Stiftung Mensch und Tier Freiburg