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New publication on passerine migration

Photo: Aron Hejdström 

Different birds use different strategies during migration. However, at some point most of them are forced to fly out over unsuitable habitats, sometimes where it is not even possible to land. This is the case for migratory passerines leaving southern Sweden during autumn migration. 
In a new study Sissel Sjöberg with colleagues look at factors affecting route choice, and which factors that affects the flight duration for the initial flight (the first 50km) across the Baltic Sea. As expected, winds were of dominating importance, both in route choice and in flight duration. More surprisingly, they observed birds departing on a longer flight across the Baltic to depart in a time frame just after sunset and that the flight duration further were affected by both cloudiness and fuel load.

The photo shows one of the robins equipped with a radio transmitter from the study. The automatic radiotelemetry system in Falsterbo makes it possible to follow it during its stay in the area, and depending on route choice, during its departure across the Baltic Sea. This to get a better understanding of stopover and departure behaviour in migratory passerines, and how they affect the overall migratory success.

The study: "Weather and fuel reserves determine departure and flight decisions in passerines migrating across the Baltic Sea" is published in Animal Behaviour.

New model on flapping flight

Nature has produced many formidable flyers and it is tempting to think that evolution has shaped them to be the ultimate flying machines. During the past half-century simple models for estimating flight performance of aircraft have been adopted to also represent animal flight.

However, in a new study, Marco Klein Heerenbrink, Christoffer Johansson and Anders Hedenström show that the aerodynamic efficiency of flying vertebrates has previously been overestimated by ignoring the effects of flapping wings - results that have implications for our understanding of optimal flight behaviour in animals and the use of flapping wings for propulsion in general.

To the paper: "Power of the wingbeat: modelling the effects of flapping wings in vertebrate flight".

New Seminar Group

from the left: Fredrik Andreasson, Gabriel Norevik, Christoffer Johansson & Emily O'Connor

After having done a great job Cecilia Nilsson and Tom Evans now leave the CAnMove Seminar Group.

Christoffer and Emily  will continue within the group together with two new members: Fredrik Andreasson and Gabriel Norevik.

 

Don’t hesitate to contact them if you have any ideas or questions about the seminars

Summer course: Animal Movement Analysis

For the third time, Computational Geo-Ecology at the University of Amsterdam is giving a summer course in Animal Movement Analysis. The course is held in Amsterdam between 6-10 July 2015, and online registration is now open.

Read more and register: http://ibed.uva.nl/news-events/events/events/events/content/folder/courses/2015/07/animal-movement-analysis.html

Party time?

Party time? No, rather another day at work for the radio telemetry researchers. We needed some more reference data for the direction finding system in Falsterbo, and what could be better than attaching transmitter tags to helium balloons and pick a nice and calm day for an excursion? Although many Falsterbo residents wondered what was going on, we successfully gathered transmitter signals from altitudes above 50 meters.

/Arne Andersson

Movement Ecology of Bats

Conference dinner at the Museum of Natural History.

Four members have just attended the “4^th International Berlin Bat Meeting: "Movement Ecology of Bats”, giving talks (Per Henningsson and Jonas Håkansson) and presenting a poster (Lasse Jakobsen). 

The conference had about 300 attendees and from a CAnMove perspective it was spot on. We have heard a great number of fascinating talks, many presenting tracking data using microdata-loggers to record GPS positions and many other variables. One study reported on bat movements where the bats also had microphones to record encounters with other bats, to show that they aggregate as they forage around the lake of Genezareth. Sharon Swartz, Brown University, gave a plenary about the recent work on skin properties and the function of inter-membrane muscles. We also had a very nice section about bat migration, where Liam McGuire talked about the network of receives that is put up in North America to study bird and bat migration. Other topics were movements and sociality and movement of bats in relation to the spreading of zoonotic disease.

The conference dinner was at the Museum of Natural History (see above), where our table was just under the head of the world’s tallest dinosaur having been mounted so far (with certificate from the Guinness book of records), and of course the museum’s crown jewels – the Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx. 

On the morning before the conference started we also made a visit to the Berlin Botanic Garden, where especially the green houses can be recommended if you visit Berlin.

 //Anders Hedenström

Loading data - two "new" co-workers!

CAnMove is currently building a large scale database where associated researchers can store data on animal movement. This database is a great opportunity to store all our precious data in a safe and structured way, to increase the visibility of the data and to make sure that it can be used and understood also by future scientists.

Mats has been working hard at building up the structure of the database, and it is now time to start loading it with data! Natalie Isaksson and Cecilia Nilsson have therefore been temporarily employed to help gather and format the data so that it can be stored in the database. Natalie and Cecilia have both previously been active in CAnMove, Natalie as a masters student working with lesser black-backed gulls foraging behavior and Cecilia as a PhD student working with nocturnally migrating passerines. Natalie will start working with light logger and orientation data and Cecilia will focus on radar and satellite data.

Cecilia and Natalie

They will also very soon compile an inventory of the data available in the program. This inventory will be a short description of the data available (e.g. method used, species, time period, contact person) that will be put up on the CAnMove webpage, to increase the visibility of the data and to encourage new collaborations. You will soon receive more information about this so that your data also can be added to our impressive list.

ENRAM meeting in Israel attended by CAnMove staff

On February 24-25, Lars Pettersson and Johan Bäckman attended the third management committee meeting of ENRAM, this time held in Kfar Blum, Israel. ENRAM is a EU-COST action with the purpose of promoting continental-scale remote sensing of animal movements using European weather radar networks.

This event was combined with working group meetings, where Lars participated in the WG3 session on visualisation and Johan in the WG2 session which dealt with validation of weather radar data. We could also enjoy a range of very interesting talks by Israeli top researchers on animal movement. Yossi Leshem and Nir Sapir arranged an excellent meeting in a very comfortable and stimulating enironment. In one morning and one evening we visited the nearby nature reserve to view large number of wintering migratory birds. The most spectacular event was the large congregation of cranes; an estimated 35000 cranes are wintering in the area.

//Text and photo: Johan Bäckman

New paper on bat flight

Morphology of the bat wing

Bats are mammals that took to the wing around 65 million years ago. Some 15 million years later, they evolved the ability of powered flight. By the aid of particle image velocimetry, recent research on bat flight has revealed many intriguing facts  - for example that bat wakes are more complex than those of birds and that their aerodynamic efficiency is lower than in birds.

This, and much more is discussed in a recent review paper on bat flight, by Christoffer Johansson and Anders Hedenström, published in Journal of Experimental Biology.

Ecology of Animal Migration course - apply now!

Migration course 2013. Photo: Tom Evans

November this year we look forward to two intensive weeks discussing and learning about the 'Ecology of Animal Migration'. Yes, this November (2015) it will be time for the biannual PhD course on animal migration. This year we are pleased to welcome back many popular lecturers from both within CAnMove at Lund University, and old friends from further afield. The course promises to cover everything from how animals find their way (navigation) to why animal migrate (evolution) via how animals move (locomotion) and many other topics. With migration across a wide variety of taxa and species discussed including marine fish, raptors, songbirds, moths, moose, and even daphnia!

The course offers the opportunity to learn a lot, talk to key researchers in your field, and meet fellow migration research students from all over the World.

Migration course 2013. Photo: Tom Evans

Don't miss this if you are a PhD student with an interest in animal migration. If you know a PhD student who might be interested, then please point them in this direction!

More information and course application:
http://canmove.lu.se/ecologyofanimalmigration2015

Ecology of Animal Migration - International PhD course
Lund University, Sweden
Monday 2nd - Friday 13th, November 2015

/Tom Evans

Lundaloppet 2015!

On Saturday May 9th, 2015's version of Lundaloppet takes place, and as usual CAnMove will be there. Last year as many as 13 CAnMovians participated!
You can choose between 5 or 10 kilometers, and we will try to plan for some joint running in Skrylleskogen before the race.
Lund University offers all employees to participate in Lundaloppet for free, so e-mail:  Christina.Rengefors@biol.lu.se to join a CAnMove team!

We CAn Move!

CAnMove conference 2015

It was a misty morning when we met at Häckeberga slott – some 40 CAnMovians gathered to discuss movement research for 1, 5 intense days!

Jannie, Sylvie and Emily

Among the participants were also four of CAnMove’s  five scientific advisary board (SAB) members, and it was our newest SAB, professor Holk Cruse from Bielefeld University, who started off the conference. Touching upon a Nobel prize topic, he gave a presentation on whether insects use cognitive maps for navigation or not. 

Marilyn Ramenofsky

Marilyn Ramenofsky followed with a talk comparing migrant and resident white-crowned sparrows in terms of behavioural and physiological traits, Kerstin Johannesson talked about the reproduction of Baltic sea wrack and Steve Reppert ended the first session with an overview of the evolutionary history of genetics of Monarch butterfly migration.

Steven Reppert

The conference as a whole, followed the morning trend with presentations covering a broad range of organisms, methods and approaches.  Christoffer Johansson introduced us to some of the novel approaches in the flight lab, such as modelling a 3D wing or creating an optimal feather. Sissel Sjöberg gave us an overview of the Falsterbo Radio Telemetry project with  - at the moment  - 1 409 893 5 gathered data points to analyze.

Sissel Sjöberg

Two good friends (photo from Anders Hedenström's presentation)

Anders Hedenström shared some of the fresh results of the non-breeding flight behaviour of the the common swift, using the latest technology from CAnMove's own lab. 

Mikael Ekvall updated us on the latest research from the nano biology group. Expanding from 1 litre to 30 litre aquariums enables new approaches, such as introducing other species and also predators. Sylvie Tesson continued on the aqatic path with her talk on how environmental factors help shape community diversity in protists.

Sylvie Tesson

Due to relatively short slots we got the opportunity to listen to no less 16 interesting talks the first day (which makes it impossible to cover all here!), and the experienced presenters did well in keeping their time slots. Although some of the more enthusiastic presenters, like Jan-Åke Nilsson, literally had to be chased off the scene by the chair. 

Jan-Åke Nilsson taking about limitations to feeding rate in bird parents.

Right from the programme start, outreach and communication has been on the agenda, and during the conference there were no less than two presentations on outreach projects targeting young people.
When Jan Heuschele realized how much non-scientific material about evolution/intelligent design there was for children, he decided to take matters into his own hands. And so he created "the world of Hopfs" - an e-book for chidren on how evolution works. Inspiring!

Jan Heuschele

Some hours later, Caroline Bolmeson and photographer Aron Hejdström presented CAnMove's own scientific outreach project - an e-book on animal movement research for high school students - engaging most of the CAnMove associated PhDs and postdocs. For the first time we got to see some of Aron's breathtaking photos, which just made you long for more!

Arne

However, a conference is not only about presenting research - meeting, talking and having a nice time is equally important - and the nice surroundings, good food and inspiring environment helped.

Susanne & Mikkel

Caroline, Christina & Sylvie

After dinner, the board took the opportunity to follow up the brainstorming event on CAnMove's future earlier this autumn.

Johan Bäckman started the second day with an overview of the latest advances of the technology lab - some of which we had already heard in earlier talks - covering micro data loggers, GPS trackers and the new data base. 
Mikkel Brydegaard Sörensen, Emily O'Connor, Max Lundberg and Kaj Hulthén then managed to cover insects, birds and fish, as well as electro-optical, genetic and tracking approaches in the four remaining presentations before the poster session!

Poster session

Christoffer, Marco & Lasse

Tom, Holk & Kozue

To sum up the conference from the advisory board's point of view, they concluded that the programme development since the conference in 2011 has been remarkable. Especially the technological development – which also has been CAnMove's first and primary goal. Moreover, they were impressed by the development in the genetic field as well as the successful integration between genetics and ecology.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this inspiring meeting and also to Christina and Susanne for the great organization! 

//Text and photo:
Helena Osvath

New publications

In Decembers issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences, CAnMove researchers

(Muhammad Asghar, Staffan Bensch, Maja Tarka, Bengt Hansson, Dennis Hasselquist) published new, interesting data on great reed warbler telomere length. Their study showed a significant heritability of telomere length on the maternal but not on the paternal side, and that the mother's age was positively correlated with their offspring's telomere length. Find the paper here: "Maternal and genetic factors determine early life telomere length"

 

Another fresh paper "Testing avian compass calibration: comparative experiments with diurnal and nocturnal passerine migrants in South Sweden" can be found in Biology open. This time it is Susanne Åkesson, Mihaela Ilieva and their european collaborators who has compared compass calibration in

dunnocks, sedge warblers and European robins.

Available PhD Position in Bird Migration in Germany

The Institute of Avian Research "Vogelwarte Helgoland" in Wilhelmshaven, Germany is looking for a PhD student to study the effects of climate change on migratory birds. The position is available from April 2015 for 3 years, last day of application: 31 January 2015. Read more!