Welcome!

More information about CAnMove and the research activities within the programme can be found at:

http://canmove.lu.se

torsdag 24 mars 2011

Interested in insects, ecology and evolution?


On May the 14th, an international symposium titled: “For love of insects: Odours, diversity, and ecology” is held on Öland. Free of charge. One of the speakers is Henrik Smith, who will talk about “Pollinators and the landscape ecology of agri-environment schemes”, check out the rest of the programme!

fredag 18 mars 2011

Seminar about the Wind tunnel

Yesterday, principal investigator Anders Hedenström gave a brief talk about the wind tunnel. Afterwards we all had the opportunity to go and see the tunnel “in action”. It was SACT (Scientific Activities group) that had arranged this talk and Anders told us all about how the wind tunnel is built and what can be done with it. The wind tunnel is huge and covers two floors. To get rid of the turbulence created by the big fan that makes the air flow through the tunnel, the tunnel is built to bend the air and make it smooth. When the air reaches the test section (where the animals fly and are studied) it has almost a laminar flow. The wind tunnel can also be tilted thus making it possible to also study gliding and climbing flight. Read more about the wind tunnel here.
 


Anders Hedenström

When we came to the wind tunnel, the master student Gide Koekkoek showed us the new invention, a robotic bat wing. This makes it easier to study air flow etc compared to using real bats that not always is so cooperative. If you want to know more about bat flight and different studies done in the wind tunnel, don´t miss the dissertation of PhD student Florian Muijres on the 28th of April. It takes place in the Blue Hall, the Ecology building.

Anders and Gide in the test section


We were many that wanted to see the wind tunnel

The robotic bat wing in action

onsdag 9 mars 2011

Migratory butterflies arrive as quickly as birds



Millions of moths and small birds migrate each year, thousands of kilometers between their summer and wintering areas. Now new research shows that these completely different animal groups have surprisingly similar migration speed. The butterflies take greater risks than the birds and uses tailwind to a greater extent (which is risky but profitable) while the birds rely more on self-powered flight and therefore do not always receive as much help from the wind. The researchers show that moths and birds have developed quite different behaviors for solving the same problem. The article is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, entitled "Convergent Patterns of Long-Distance Nocturnal Migration in Noctuid Mother and Passerine Birds" by Thomas Alerstam, Jason W. Chapman, Johan Bäckman, Alan D. Smith, Håkan Karlsson, Cecilia Nelson, Don R. Reynolds, Raymond HG Klaassen, and Jane K. Hill.

måndag 7 mars 2011

Shine a little light – nano-populism!

Through a more than an hour long telephone interview from New York, the nano-zooplankton project within CanMove has been put in the spotlight of the popular science journal OnEarth Magazine. Check out the link: http://www.onearth.org/article/shine-a-little-light if you want a popular (populistic?) presentation of the massive migratory patterns of small crustacean animals in freshwater and marine ecosystems. Or read journalist Alan Burdick's blogpost on the same topic: http://www.aburdick.com/silvarerum/2011/03/04/chasing-daphnia-the-smallest-story-on-earth/

//Lars-Anders Hansson

fredag 4 mars 2011

Animal Flight Research Highlighted in Research Council Annual Report

VR regards the Animal flight lab as "basic research of the highest quality", in their latest annual report. Read more on the flight lab blog!

The fascinating migration of sharp-tailed sandpipers


One of CAnMoves principal investigators, Åke Lindström, has recently (together with six other scientists) published an interesting article in the international journal “The Condor”. In the article they discuss the fact that juvenile sharp-tailed sandpipers choose a large detour during their migration. They fly from northeastern Siberia to Australia via Alaska! This is probably due to the large delta areas in western Alaska where the sharp-tailed sandpipers can eat a lot to become really fat and well prepared for the long journey to their nonbreeding area in Australia. You can read more about their fascinating migratory route here.