Course opportunity for international students: Ecology and Conservation of Migratory Birds

Folks,
I would like to bring the below opportunity to your attention.  We will be offering at least 4 fully paid scholarships for qualified international students to attend this course.  Unfortunately time is short so potential applicants should apply ASAP.  Please contact either Pete Marra (marrap@si.edu) or Brandt Ryder (rydert@si.edu) with questions.  Please distribute widely - especially to potential applicants!  Qualified international students can be enrolled at US institutions.
The Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (http://SMconservation.gmu.edu) in Front Royal, VA, USA is excited to announce a new intensive two-week course: Ecology and Conservation of Migratory Birds (September 1-12, 2014). Led by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, this course teaches the most current methods in the research of migratory birds including theoretical concepts, field and laboratory methods (including mist-netting, banding, tissue sampling, stable isotope geochemistry, geolocators and radio telemetry), data analysis (including mark-recapture statistics) and applied conservation strategies. Scholarships are available on a competitive basis for international applicants, and reduced course fees are offered for those applying from less-developed countries. Check out the course page on our website for more details on course content and pricing. The application deadline has been extended so apply now! Contact SCBItraining@si.edu with any additional questions.

Peter P Marra Ph.D. |
Head
Migratory Bird Center
Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park
PO Box 37012 MRC 5503, Washington, DC 20013-7012
(Fed-Ex and UPS deliveries: 3001 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008)
T 202-633-1594| F 202-673-0040 | Email marrap@si.edu;
Check out our exciting websites and projects:
http://www.si.edu/smbc/
http://www.migratoryconnectivityproject.org/
Follow SMBC on social media!

CAnMove receive continued VR funding

Dear CAnMovians,

today the decision by VR was communicated that CAnMove and most other Linnaeus programs funded 2008 receive continued level of funding. It is time to celebrate and to continue our plans for the coming period! There were some limted changes, and interestingly enough there were both cut-downs and increased funding within our evaluation group in Natural Sciences. Increased funding by 10% were given to CeMEB  - The Linnaeus Centre for Marine Evolutionary Biology – University of Gothenburg, while both UCEG - Uppsala Centre of Evolution and Genomics – Uppsala University and SUPRA - Linnaeus Centre for Bio-inspired Supramolecular Function and Design –
Chalmers University of Technology received cut-downs by the same amount (10%). The complete report is available for down-loading at VR home page.

All in all the Linnaeus centres show well functioning organization and many produce world-leading research. CAnMove is certainly one of them, and we can be proud of our acheivements. The panel wrote: "CAnMove has undertaken excellent and innovative research, making use of modern technological developments to fundamentally advance the field." It was further high-lighted for our centre that we have excellent outreach performance, and have started several new infrastructure initiatives. The outreach activities is  continuing with the recently funded E-book project involving CAnMove PhD students. We further were adviced to look into recruiting modelling expertice, to approach the industry, and to re-allocate funding to stimulate research projects in focus areas involving graduate students. There are many possibilities and by recent developments and initiatives within the program, I foresee a bright future and hopefully a long establishment of the CAnMove centre and its reasearch at Lund University. It is time to explore all new infrastructures and new collaborative projects that we have initiated!

Thanks for all your support preparing the Midterm evaluation report!

Varm wishes,
Susanne

CanMove Book to the Printer!

The well read, almost 300 page long, proof of the entire book, including the lay outed cover

A more than two year long journey for us all with the book “Animal Movement Across Scales” is now over as the corrected proofs of all chapters are now handed in to Oxford University Press and the process is now in their hands. We can be proud of managing to perform this gigantic task according to plan, which should mean that the book will be on the shelf in September.
So, thanks for all your efforts and let us hope the book will serve as inspiration for others and kick off new and creative research!

/L-A

Liselott Nilsson - Movements of pikeperch, bream and pike in Lake Ringsjön, Sweden.

Tomorrow Thursday 12 June, at 11:00 Liselott Nilsson will present her interesting thesis works at Tanken, Aquatic Ecology

Movements of pikeperch, bream and pike in Lake Ringsjön, Sweden.

Conference on Movement Ecology of Bats, 2015

Already it's possible to sign up for the 4th International Bat Meeting: Movement ecology of bats in Berlin 13-15 March 2015. Early bird registration is until September 15th.

"The aim of this conference is to foster an exchange of ideas among international specialists working on bats in the context of movement ecology. We are especially keen on crossing disciplinary boundaries and hope that the discussion among ecologists, morphologists, theoreticians, physiologists and conservationists will advance the field substantially. We suggest several exciting topics as sessions or workshops. In addition, we have invited plenary speakers to review novel applications and exciting developments in their respective research areas."

Film competition prize revealed!

PhD students and post-docs in CAnMove have earlier been urged to make 1-minute films of research situations. Today we reveal the prize for best film!

The prize:

A high-definition action camera GoPro Hero, latest model is 4, and is out this summer. The GoPro has amazing HD-image quality and comes with a ton of features. Basically, you go on a real ride with the camera strapped to your helmet/body, film/photograph your adventure and share it immediately to social medias.

Go to GoPro´s webpage and become inspired!

This is what you have to do to compete:

Make a film of about 1 minute of your fieldwork. You can use a smart phone or more sophisticated gear, as long as the content is interesting/fun/exciting…There is a possibility to borrow a small Panasonic Full HD-camera from Christina Rengefors´ office (3rd floor, room B364).
The best way to ensure great material, is to produce a lot of films and choose a few that you like. You can send as many films as you like to us! We encourage you not to feel pressured into doing something too ambitious. Have faith that your films are good enough.

Jury:

We will probably have some kind of web-voting where all of you have a chance to vote for the top-3 films. When voting is over, we will announce the winner later this autumn.

All films sent to CAnMove can be used in the CAnMove blog and on our YouTube-channel to spread information and inspiration about science.

Send your films to:

Caroline.bolmeson@biol.lu.se

Good luck!

Better not move randomly

Example of marine copepod swimming patterns. Four 1-minute trajectories in each panel: (a) Clausocalanus furcatus fast cruising pattern, (b) Temora stylifera female, (c) C. furcatus swim-and-sink pattern (sink in red), (d) T. stylifera male.

How organisms move through their environment determines how often they encounter prey, predators and mates. In a recently published paper on the Royal Society Interface (link) we outline a method – the trajectory self-overlap – that gives direct estimates of the resources and risks encountered by a moving animal. We applied this method to the three-dimensional world of plankton revealing fundamental compromise in how these organisms move.

There is a controversy surrounding the supposed prevalence of Lévy Walk (or Lévy Flight) in animal movement patterns. The case for Lévy Walks is almost universally posed in terms of search efficiency. However, movement patterns must also contend with predation risk. It appears from our analysis that the tortuosity of plankton motion has little to do with search efficiency, but is largely a response to predator avoidance. This is particularly apparent in swimming behaviours with long systematic correlations, such as for helical or loop-forming swimming patterns.

Avoiding moving in a random fashion and exploring their environment with regular trajectories, planktonic organisms can maintain high search efficiency for prey while keeping their exposure to predation risk at a minimum!

/Giuseppe