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