Welcome to CAnMove breakfast

Welcome to CAnMove breakfast that will take Place on Friday 13th September, in fikarummet on the second floor at 08:30.
Celebration of the submission of the half-time evaluation report to the Swedish Research Council will take place. You are all most welcome!

New paper on immunity in blue tits

MHC molecules are known to be central in adaptive immunity, and studies on parasite resistance and MHC in wild animals have found effects on both infection intensity (parasite load) and infection status (infected or not). In a recent study by Helena Westerdahl et al these two aspects were considered simultaneously with a frequent avian malaria infection in a natural population of blue tits - showing that blue tits that carry a specific MHC allele seem able to suppress the malaria infection intensity, while there was no evidence that this allele also had an effect on clearance of the malaria infection.

The study,  “MHC-I affects infection intensity but not infection status with a frequent avian malaria parasite in blue tits” is available online in  PLOS ONE.

LUMBO arrives to roof platform

The new CAnMove infrastructure LUMBO (Lund University Mobile Biosphere Observatory) designed for tracking insects and birds arrived to the Ecology Building today, where it is now installed at the roof platform.  The realization of the instrumentation is a concerted effort between physicists at LCC and Computer Control at Lund University and CAnMove biologists. Careful cranehandling facilitated placement on the roof where we assisted with logistics to set the new instrument in place. During summer LUMBO has been allocated to several research projects focusing on insects. Now it is time to develop the possibilities for remote sensing and tracking of birds.

Susanne



Photo: Susanne Åkesson. Experienced driver Pelle from Akka frakt handled
the crane and LUMBO with care and precision.

Time to celebrate!

CAnMove has now submitted the half-time evaluaiton report to the Swedish Research Council for evaluation by the expert panel. The process of preparing the report has been very educational and we find great progress and high activity in this very dynamic research environment! I wish to express my gratitude to all personnel and scientists helping with the report writing, but also to all members who during the first five years have contributed to CAnMove by creating a highly dynamic and productive research environment. I hope to see continued high research output, but also new instrumentation and technology as well as the new database in use over the next years to come. Soon we also hope to see a text book on Animal Movement Across Scales on the shelfs in many research labs around the world. Keep animal movement research going!
Susanne Åkesson
Director CAnMove
PS. Celebration of the report submission will take place during the upcomign CAnMOve breakfast. You are All most Welcome!

Swifts and swallows on the news

This weekend one of the Swedish National TV shows visited Susanne Åkesson and Anders Hedenström during their fieldwork on swifts and swallows on Öland. See the clip from "Rapport" (starting 16.00).

Sydsvenskan about insect research!

Today Sydsvenskan reports on some of the CAnMove releated insect research going on at the moment. Read more about Mikkel, Maren and Lumbo!

New paper on 3D tracking!

(A) Picture of the stereo vision system, composed by two cameras (Cam1 and Cam2) that overlook the entire aquarium from different angles. (B) Air-cooled blue-light lamp used to excite the red and yellow fluorescent nanoparticles. (C) Schematic top view of the system with cameras positioned 90° from each other.

Computer vision applications are very useful to study animal movements, but due to their intrinsic complexity they are challenging to design, implement, and use properly.  In our new paper (see http://aslo.org/lomethods/free/2013/0278.html) we describe a laboratory system for tracking zooplankton in 3D. We demonstrate the crucial importance of using a correct calibration for proper interpretation of animal swimming behaviour and why 2D tracks are unable to give complete information on Daphnia movement performance.

This new system is currently used to investigate how zooplankton deal under multiple risks – such as UV radiation and predation – and how individual difference in behavioural responses might affect the functioning of aquatic ecosystems. More to come soon…

/Giuseppe et al.