The behavioural ecology of animal movement: reflections upon potential synergies.

Movement is a ubiquitous feature of the lives of animals, and is integral to many important behavioural processes, acting at multiple scales. Animal movement can shape the destiny of individuals and populations; govern community and ecosystem structure; and influence evolutionary processes and patterns of biodiversity.

Thus, CAnMove organised a symposium on "Behavioural Ecology of Animal Movement" as post-conference Symposium following the ISBE conference in Lund, August 2012.

The symposium was very well attended and resulted in a lively discussion among participants - part of which we summarised as an opinion paper that just got published with Animal Migration (doi: 10.2478/ami-2013-0002).

In this short paper, we outline state-of-the-art insight into research carried out covering a diverse range of taxa with focus on different aspects, and present the various methodological approaches ready to be applied to study movement ecology in order to make major advances in this research field. We reflect on the behavioural ecology of animal movement, asking how these two related disciplines can produce new insights and synergies, highlight the latest technological toolkit, exchange our ideas and opinions on current research within the field of movement ecology, and aim to enhance interdisciplinary discussion in this vibrant field in order to identify future directions and methodological approaches to be focused upon.

We want to thank all attendees, and particularly our invited speakers, again, for making this symposium such a great success.

In this spirit we just say: Move on!

M. Liedvogel, B. Chapman, R. Muheim, S. Åkesson (2013): The behavioural ecology of animal movement: reflections upon potential synergies. Animal Migration 1, 39–46.

Symposium "Navigation techniques: How do air navigators and animals find their way?"

Pinky on a Catalina in 1944.

On April, 27 2012, it is time for another CAnMove symposium. This time, we will focus on the question, how animals and the old air navigator find their way around the planet. Which features do they use, what sort of techniques have they developed to navigate? And (how) do the navigation strategies, used air navigators and "other animals" differ?

We are very happy to welcome Air Commodore ‘Pinky’ Grocott, Moderator E-Mail Animal-forum, RIN, as one of our symposium speakers. Pinky will give us an appreciation of the techniques he used to apply as an air navigator, mainly relying on the natural features of the universe – some of which may also be used by animals to navigate.

But what do animals, such as sea turtles, that migrate under water do to avoid getting lost in the ocean on their impressive journeys? We are delighted to have Ken Lohmann, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA as a guest speaker, who will share insight into this mystery.

Swedish Polar Research Secretariat.

What does a small songbird, that uses the Earth’s magnetic field as reference system to find its way do, when it flies across the North Pole? At the poles, birds are facing steep inclination angles that make it very hard to defer directional information from. Susanne Åkesson went up North to find an answer these questions.

We are very much looking forward to welcoming you all on April 27- the programme promises to take care of an entertaining morning session. Please let me know by E-Mail (miriam.liedvogel@biol.lu.se) if you want to attend, so we make sure there are enough sandwiches ready for the mingling part of the session.

Symposium on migration at SICB meeting in Seattle, 3-7 January 2010

Dear All,

Melissa Bowlin currently a Postdoc in Lund has asked me to post an announcement for a coming sumposion, Integrative Migration Biology, which will be held at the 2010 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) meeting, Jan. 3-7, in Seattle, WA. You may submit an abstract and atted the meeting, which I believe will be of great interest to many in CAnMove.

Please find more information below:

Call for abstracts/symposium announcement - Integrative Migration Biology.
Deadline 11 September.

We are sending out a call for abstracts to present in a session complementing our symposium, Integrative Migration Biology, which will be held at the 2010 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) meeting, Jan. 3-7, in Seattle, WA. We would especially like to extend this invitation to students and post-docs, but welcome abstracts from all researchers currently studying animal migration. As a student or post-doc, this would give you a wonderful opportunity to interact with some of the top researchers in the field of animal migration. We welcome submissions for both contributed papers and posters, and encourage students to apply for SICB’s Charlotte Mangum Student Support Program. Please check out the SICB meeting page at http://www.sicb.org/meetings/2010/index.php3 for more information.

Billions of animals migrate each year, and they can have enormous effects on the communities and ecosystems they inhabit. We wish to bring together researchers from all over the world who are attempting to integrate ecology, evolution, behavior, physiology, and theory in order to understand the phenomenon of migration. In order to migrate, organisms themselves must integrate many aspects of behavior, physiology, genetics, and morphology. Migration is therefore an excellent system in which to study adaptation and the interplay between various ecological and evolutionary levels of analysis. Traditionally, however, researchers have tended to focus on one narrow aspect of migratory behavior to the exclusion of all else. More recently, biologists have begun to examine multiple aspects of migration in order to better understand this important life history strategy. The primary goal of this symposium is to bring these researchers together with students and post-docs who are just staring their research programs in order to foster discussion and collaboration and further the development of integrative migration biology research.


This symposium and the complementary session(s) are designed to provide a venue for researchers from around the globe to discuss the past, present, and future of migration research. The list of symposium speakers and preliminary titles include:

1. Melissa Bowlin (Lund University), Isabelle-Anne Bisson (Princeton University), & Martin Wikelski (Max Planck Institute for Ornithology). “Integrative migration biology: Past, present, and an exciting future.”

2. Marilyn Ramenofsky (University of California Davis). “Endocrine and metabolic parameters coincide with daily fueling and flight cycles of captive migrants.”

3. Anders Hedenström (Lund University). “Testing migration theory: the utility of inegrative approaches using field experiments and wind tunnels.”

4. Chris Guglielmo (University of Western Ontario). TBA

5. Susanne Åkesson (Lund University). “Endogenous migration programs, migratory fattening and orientation in passerine birds.”

6. Kasper Thorup (University of Copenhagen). “Understanding the migratory orientation program in birds: extending laboratory studies to studying free-flying migrants in a natural setting.”

7. Tom Kunz (Boston University). TBA

8. Nir Sapir (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem). “The effect of weather on migrating bee-eaters studied by radio-telemetry and numeric atmospheric model.”

9. Judy Shamoun-Baranes (Amsterdam University). “Integrating measurements and models to study the influence of weather on migration.”

10. Peter Marra (Migratory Bird Center, Smithsonian Institution). “Seasonal interactions and carry-over effects – understanding migration in the context of the annual cycle.”

11. David Wilcove (Princeton University). TBA

Additional information will be posted on our symposium website, which can be found here: http://sicb.org/meetings/2010/symposia/index.php3 once we have finalized some additional details. If you have questions about the symposium or the meeting, please contact us at melissabowlin at gmail dot com or ibisson at princeton dot edu.

Funding for this symposium was provided by MIGRATE, an NSF-funded Research Coordination Network, and SICB.

Note: in order to ensure that your talk or poster will be placed in the correct session, be sure to put our symposium, ‘Integrative Migration Biology’ into the field following the statement, “I would like to be in a session complementing a regular symposium” on the abstract submission form on SICB’s meeting webpage.
We hope to see you in Seattle!