CAnMove Newsletter Winter 2012

The winter has now come to the south of Sweden first with white fluffy snow, but thereafter with rain and grey weather.  Christmas is approaching and there has been an intense period for CAnMove personnel and members preparing for a winter break and Christmas celebration. I wish to thank all for their efforts and enthusiasm for the program progress!

I am very happy to announce some of the recent progress within CAnMove:

1)      We successfully received a grant from the Swedish Research Council dedicated to large database developments. I wish to thank all persons assisting me in preparing the application which was granted by the Swedish Research Council. Thanks to Johan Bäckman, Thomas Alerstam, Anders Hedenström and Ulf Gärdenfors from LifeWatch Sweden! The position as a database developer is now open and we welcome dedicated and interested applicants to this exciting and central work for CAnMove. The plan is to recruit one qualified person starting early next year.

2)      Johan Bäckman and SÅ have visited WRAM in Umeå, another database project dedicated to spatial telemetry data and remote sensory data for wildlife tracking. We will be cooperating on developing database efforts and on web-based solutions for communication of tracking data to LifeWatch Sweden. The meeting with Holger Detki, Per Ericsson and co-workers in SLU, Umeå was a great success and very inspirational. We look forward to future cooperation between CAnMove and WRAM.

3)      We are grateful to Rachel Muheim who has initiated the equality work at CAnMove and who is not stepping down from the duty to let Maren Wellenreuter and Åke Lindström lead the activities during the coming period starting with new activities in 2013. Thanks Rachel and very welcome to the job Maren and Åke, and we are looking forward to your enthusiastic work and efforts!

4)      Tom Evans with supporters are starting with a book club for CAnMove in 2013, inviting participants to read literature across species, topic and scale. Please, join the discussions which will be announced early next year.

5)      The PhD student course on the Ecology of Animal Migration will be given again to 1 November 2013. Anders Hedenström and Rachel Muheim with support from Jannika Boström will organize the course. Please, spread the word to interested PhD student across the world! You may sign up for the course at the web page.

6)      Helena Osvath will continue to work with CAnMove, but at a reduced level in 2013. We are grateful for her decision to stay with us for the coming period and dedicate her time to the upcoming evaluation.

7)      Please, do not forget to sign up for the dispersal symposium organized by Sylvie Tesson. Information at our home page.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I am looking forward to see you back in Lund after the Winter Holidays!

Susanne

CAnMove Conference 2013

Every second year, all CAnMovians gather to discuss the programme, science and the future - and next year it’s time for the third conference since the programme start in 2008. Next year will also be characterized by the upcoming mid evaluation by the Swedish Research Council, which of course will influence the conference. As usual, our Science Advisory board will be invited to join and we hope for two extremely interesting and fun days! Please reserve April 16-17^th in your calendars!

Drought in Africa delayed arrival of European Songbirds

The late spring arrival of several European songbirds puzzled bird watchers and researchers in 2011. Especially since many of these trans-Saharan migratory bird species have been shown to arrive progressively earlier over the last 50 years due to climate change.

In a study published in Science, December 6th, CAnMove researchers in collaboration with Danish collegues reveal that the delay of red-backed shrikes and thrush nightingales in 2011 was caused by a prolongation of stopover time during spring migration at the Horn of Africa, which was affected by extreme drought. To the publication!

New open-access journal for Movement Ecology

"Movement Ecology is a new open-access interdisciplinary journal publishing novel insights from empirical and theoretical approaches into the ecology of movement of the whole organism – either animals, plants or microorganisms – as the central theme. We welcome manuscripts on any taxa and any movement phenomena (e.g. foraging, dispersal and seasonal migration) addressing important research questions on the patterns, mechanisms, causes and consequences of organismal movement. Manuscripts will be rigorously peer-reviewed to ensure novelty and high quality." To the web site

Vacant position as database developer!

Due to the recently granted money from VR, CAnMove is now hiring a full time database developer to create a database for animal movementa data. Read more!