Dr. agr. Christian Nawroth
Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN)
Working Group Animal Behaviour & Welfare
Wilhelm-Stahl-Allee 2
18196 Dummerstorf
Working Group Animal Behaviour & Welfare
Wilhelm-Stahl-Allee 2
18196 Dummerstorf
Research interests
I am interested in how animals perceive and interact with their physical and social environment. In particular, my research focuses on the cognitive capacities of farm (goats, horses, pigs, sheep) and zoo animals (great apes, penguins) and how this knowledge can ultimately be used to improve their management conditions and human-animal interactions.
- Animal Cognition
- Human-Animal Interactions
- Animal Welfare Science
- Animal Ethics
Curriculum Vitae
- 2025-present: Senior scientist, FBN Dummerstorf, Germany
- 2017-2025: Post Doc, FBN Dummerstorf, Germany
- 2015-2017: Postdoctoral Fellow, Queen Mary University London, UK
- 2010-2015: Doctoral student, Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
Doctoral thesis: Farm Animal Cognition - Physico- and Socio-cognitive Capabilities of Ungulate Livestock - 2009: Diploma in Biology, University of Würzburg, Germany
Publications
Nawroth, C.; Langbein, J.; Coulon, M.; Gabor, V.; Oesterwind, S.; Benz-Schwarzburg, J.; von Borell, E. (2019):
Farm animal cognition: Linking behaviour, welfare and ethics
Frontiers in Veterinary Science 6: 24, 1-16
https://doi.org/doi: 10.3389/fvets.2019.00024
Baciadonna, L.; Nawroth, C.; Briefer, E. F.; McElligott, A. F. (2019):
Perceptual lateralization of vocal stimuli in goats
Current Zoology 65 (1): 67-74
https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoy022
Baciadonna, L.; Düpjan, S.; Briefer, E. F.; Padilla de la Torre, M.; Nawroth, C. (2018):
Looking on the bright side of livestock emotions - the potential of their transmission to promote positive welfare
Frontiers in Veterinary Science 5: 218, 1-6
https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2018.00218
Ebersbach, M.; Nawroth, C. (2018):
Shape but not color facillitates two-year-olds' search performance in a spatial rotation task
Infancy 23 (6): 820-832
https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12259
Langbein, J.; Krause, A.; Nawroth, C. (2018):
Human-directed behaviour in goats is not affected by short-term positive handling
Animal Cognition 21: 795-803
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-018-1211-1
Nawroth, C.; Albuquerque, N.; Savalli, C.; Single, M.S.; McElligott, A.G. (2018):
Goats prefer positive human emotional facial expressions
Royal Society Open Science 5: 180491, 1-8
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.180491
Burla, J.-B.; Siegwart, J.; Nawroth, C. (2018):
Human demonstration does not facilitate the performance of horses (Equus caballus) in a spatial problem-solving task
Animals 8 (6): 96, 1-8
https://doi.org/10.3390/ani8060096
Cauchoix, M.; van Horik, J. O.; Atance, C. M.; Barbeau, E. J.; Barragan-Jason, G.; Bize, P.; Boussard, A.; Buechel, S. D.; Cabirol, A.; Cauchard, L.; Claidière, N.; Dalesman, S.; Devaud, J. M.; Didic, M.; Doligez, B.; Fagot, J.; Fichtel, C.; Henke-von der Malsburg, J.; Hermer, E.; Huber, L.; Huebner, F.; Kappeler, P. M.; Klein, S.; Langbein, J.; Langley, E. J. G.; Lea, S. E. G.; Lihoreau, M.; Lovlie, H.; Matzel, L. D.; Nakagawa, S.; Nawroth, C.; Oesterwind, S.; Sauce, B.; Smith, E. A.; Sorato, E.; Tebbich, S.; Wallis, L. J.; Whiteside, M. A.; Wilkinson, A.; Chaine, A. S.; Morand-Ferron, J. (2018):
The repeatability of cognitive performance: a meta-analysis
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 373 (1756): 20170281, 1-13
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0281
Baruzzi, C.; Nawroth, C.; McElligott, A. G.; Baciadonna, L. (2018):
Motor asymmetry in goats during a stepping task
Laterality 23 (5): 599-609
https://doi.org/10.1080/1357650X.2017.1417993
Nawroth, C.; Prentice, P. M.; McElligott, A. G. (2017):
Individual personality differences in goats predict their performance in visual learning and non-associative cognitive tasks
Behavioural Processes 134: 43-53
Nawroth, C.; McElligott, A. G. (2017):
Human head orientation and eye visibility as indicators of attention for goats (Capra hircus)
PeerJ 5: e3073, 1-17
Nawroth, C.; Langbein, J. (2017):
Taking livestock psychology back to the barn : commentary on Marino and Allen (2017), the psychology of cows
Animal Behavior and Cognition 4 (4): 519-521
https://dx.doi.org/10.26451/abc.04.04.12.2017
Nawroth, C.; Trincas, E.; Favaro, L. (2017):
African penguins follow the gaze direction of conspecifics
PeerJ 5: e3459, 1-11
https://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3459
Nawroth, C. (2017):
Socio-cognitive capacities of goats and their impact on human-animal interactions
Small Ruminant Research 150: 70-75
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smallrumres.2017.03.005
Nawroth, C.; Ebersbach, M.; Von Borell, E. (2016):
Are domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domestica) able to use complex human-given cues to find a hidden reward? Anim. Welfare 25: 185-190
Nawroth, C.; Brett, J. M.; McElligott, A. G. (2016):
Goats display audience-dependent human-directed gazing behaviour in a problem-solving task. Biol. Lett. 12: 20160283
Nawroth, C.; Borell, E. v.; Langbein, J. (2016):
‘Goats that stare at men’—revisited: do dwarf goats alter their behaviour in response to eye visibility and head direction of a human? Anim Cogn 19: 667-672
Nawroth, C.; Baciadonna, L.; McElligott, A. G. (2016):
Goats learn socially from humans in a spatial problem-solving task. Anim. Behav. 121: 123-129
Ebersbach, M.; Nawroth, C. (2016):
The Effects of Visual Discriminability and Rotation Angle on 30-Month-Olds’ Search Performance in Spatial Rotation Tasks. Frontiers in Psychology 7: 1648