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Ursula Ellenberg imageContact details

Office 360 Leith Street, room 1.S12
Tel +64 3 479 5453
Email ursula.ellenberg@otago.ac.nz

Academic qualifications

  • MSc, University of Kiel
  • PhD, University of Otago

Research interests

  • Conservation Physiology – using physiological tools to understand and predict how organisms respond to environmental stressors to better inform the management of conservation challenges
  • Behavioural ecology – asking questions on why and how individual differences affect behaviour (e.g. stress‐coping styles, foraging strategies), and ultimately (life‐time) reproductive success and survival
  • Marine ecology and at-sea behaviour of seabirds
  • Population ecology and conservation biology of seabirds
  • Citizen science

Ursula is an ecologist with a keen interest and broad background in both terrestrial and marine systems. She enjoys employing novel technologies to understand how animals use their environment or respond to stressors to inform anticipatory conservation management decisions. Ursula has more than 20 years of experience in coordinating fieldwork and leading research projects in New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Canada, Germany, the Russian and Norwegian Arctic – and a soft spot for seabirds!

Ursula is a founding member of the Tawaki Trust and together with her partner Thomas Mattern she leads the Tawaki Project, a long-term study of the biology and marine ecology of Fiordland penguins/Tawaki and other crested penguins.

Tawaki Trust

Tawaki Project

Courses

  • MARI 112 Marine Biology: The Living Ocean
  • MARI 302 Biology and Behaviour of Marine Vertebrates
  • MARI 429 Coastal Marine Environment
  • ECOL 111 Ecology and Conservation of Diversity

Current students

Felix Borrowdale, MSc: Seabird assemblages in the Foveaux Strait, New Zealand (Ellenberg, Rayment, Daudt)

Olivia Ediriweera, MSc: Integrating the stressors facing South Island little blue penguins kororā (Eudyptula minor/ novaehollandiae) through feather CORT (Ellenberg, Dunphy, Mattern)

Owen Dabkowski, MSc: Foraging ecology of Tawaki (Eudyptes pachyrhynchus) in Taiporoporo Charles Sound (Ellenberg, Waters, Jeunen, Mattern)

Oskar Ehrhardt, MSc: Seawatcher: Quantifying automatability of seabirds-at-sea surveys with machine learning and robotised cameras (Ellenberg & Geurten)

Lauren Tworkowski (La Trobe University, PhD): Thermoregulatory capabilities of Little Penguins in relation to human induced changes of their environment (Dann, Robert, Ellenberg)

Bianca Keys, PhD: Topographical and oceanographic conditions that influence terrestrial and marine distributions, and population dynamics of Erect-crested (Eudyptes sclateri) and Eastern Rockhopper penguins ( E. filholi) on sub-Antarctic Islands (Mattern, Ellenberg, Hickox, van Heezik, Seddon)

Recent postgraduate students

Arawhetu Waipoua (MSc): Identifying areas of high conservation concern through fine-scale GPS tracking of kuaka (Whenua Hou Diving Petrel; Pelecanoides georgicus whenuahouensis) during the breeding period (Ellenberg, Rowley, Fischer)

Finn Stoneman (MSc): The foraging ecology of Tawaki/Fiordland penguins (Eudyptes pachyrhynchus) in Dusky Sound, Southern Fiordland (Ellenberg, Jeunen, Mattern)

Blake Hornblow (MSc): Changing oceanographic conditions and the effect on foraging behaviour of Tawaki/Fiordland penguins (Eudyptes pachyrhynchus) (Ellenberg, Mattern, Wing)

Thor Elley (MSc): Foraging ecology of yellow-eyed penguins (Megadyptes antipodes) on Rakiura/Stewart Island (Mattern, Ellenberg, Seddon)

Jeffrey Wayne White (University of Miami, PhD), Foraging ecology and dive physiology of Fiordland penguins/Tawaki (Eudyptes pachyrhynchus) in New Zealand (McCracken, Mattern, Ellenberg)

Publications

Bastías-Aguilar, I., Mattern, T., Ellenberg, U., Daigre, M., & Simeone, A. (2026). Spatio-temporal overlap between purse seine fisheries and Humboldt penguin feeding areas in northern Chile. PeerJ, 14, e20714. doi: 10.7717/peerj.20714 Journal - Research Article

VanCompernolle, M., Morris, J., Calich, H. J., Rodríguez, J. P., Marley, S. A., Pearce, J. R., … Ellenberg, U., … Mattern, T., … Sequeira, A. M. M. (2025). Vulnerability of marine megafauna to global at-sea anthropogenic threats. Conservation Biology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1111/cobi.70147 Journal - Research Article

White, J., Lavretsky, P., Garcia Borboroglu, P., Díaz, A., Ellenberg, U., Houston, D., … Mattern, T., … Seddon, P. J., & McCracken, K. G. (2025). Population structure of three New Zealand crested penguins identifies current conservation challenges for the Fiordland penguin/tawaki, erect-crested penguin, and eastern rockhopper penguin. PLoS ONE, 20(8), e0329545. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0329545 Journal - Research Article

Mattern, T., Pütz, K., Garcia Borboroglu, P., Ellenberg, U., Houston, D. M., Luthi, B., & Seddon, P. J. (2025). A Jack of all trades: Tawaki/Fiordland penguins are able to utilise diverse marine habitats during winter migration. PeerJ, 13, e19695. doi: 10.7717/peerj.19695 Journal - Research Article

Otis, M., Mattern, T., Ellenberg, U., Long, R., Garcia Borboroglu, P., Seddon, P. J., & van Heezik, Y. (2025). Inter-colony and inter-annual behavioural plasticity in the foraging strategies of a fjord-dwelling penguin-good news in the face of environmental change? PeerJ, 13, e19650. doi: 10.7717/peerj.19650 Journal - Research Article

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