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By Samuel Temidayo Osinubi, FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology
Migration strategies within the tropics are still poorly understood as are the drivers of movement and the degree of connectivity between sites in migrant birds that have their global range and life cycle exclusively on a single continent – intra-continental migrants. On this side of the Atlantic, the plan is to establish an intra-African bird migration project.
The MLSG organised a two-day satellite symposium just before the official EOU conference earlier this year in August. We had about 70 official attendees with another 20 or so dropping in informally, particularly on the day the EOU official started. Thirty nine attendees gave presentations – short summaries of these are given below. A visual impression can be found here, more info in text below.
Recent publications
Jasper Wehrmann, Folkert de Boer, Rafa Benjumea, Simon Cavaillès, Dries Engelen, Johannes Jansen, Brecht Verhelst and Wouter M.G. Vansteelant 2019. Batumi Raptor Count: autumn raptor migration count data from the Batumi bottleneck, Republic of Georgia ZooKeys View online
Adam E Duerr, Tricia A Miller, Leah Dunn, Douglas A Bell, Peter H Bloom, Robert N Fisher, Jeffrey A Tracey & Todd E Katzner 2019. Topographic drivers of flight altitude over large spatial and temporal scales The Auk View online
Carolyn M.Bauer, Jessica L.Graham and Timothy J.Greives 2019. Corticosterone negative feedback is weaker during spring vs. autumn migration in a songbird (Junco hyemalis) General and Comparative Endocrinology View online
Matthew G. DeSaix, Lesley P. Bulluck, Andrew J. Eckert, Catherine B. Viverette, Than J. Boves, Jessica A. Reese, Christopher M. Tonra and Rodney J. Dyer 2019. Population assignment reveals low migratory connectivity in a weakly structured songbird Molecular Ecology View online
Simon O. Valdez-Juarez, Elizabeth A. Krebs, Anna E. Drake and David J. Green 2019. Assessing the effect of seasonal agriculture on the condition and winter survival of a migratory songbird in Mexico Conservation Science and Practice View online
Latest news
MLSG at “Migrant Birds as Indicators of Climate Change” conference, Gdańsk
From Dec 13th – 16th 2018 the Bird Migration Research Station (BMRS) from the University of Gdańsk, together with the Operation Baltic Foundation, hosted the international conference on “Migrant Birds as Indicators of Climate Change”. This event was part of a larger project, “Building an Early Warning System for Biodiversity in the Face of Climate Change”, jointly funded by the National Centre for Research and Development (Poland) and the National Research Foundation (South Africa), within a research cooperation agreement between the two countries. In total 65 participants from Poland, Holland, Denmark, France, Belgium, England and South Africa gathered in Hotel Orle in at Sobieszewo Island’s Baltic coast in southern Gdańsk.
13 - 16 December, Gdansk, Poland
A joint conference of the "Birds as Early Warning Systems" of the Poland–South Africa collaboration project, the Migrant Landbird Study Group, and the Polish Network of Bird Ringing Stations (KSSOP) - more info here
Deadline has been extended to 14 October!
More info and to sign up, see here
Point Blue Conservation Science is seeking one volunteer research assistant to work on Southeast Farallon Island, 30 miles west of San Francisco, California as part of a study examining the migratory movement of parulid warblers.
Insectivorous birds consume an estimated 400-500 million tons of prey annually
The Science of Nature
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-018-1571-z
By Martin Nyffeler, Çağan Şekercioğlu & Christopher Whelan
For the first time, the predation impact of the insectivorous birds has been quantified on a global scale based on 103 (for the most part published) studies of prey consumption (kg per ha per season) of insectivorous birds in seven terrestrial biome types (i.e., tropical forests, temperate/boreal forests, tropical grasslands/savannas, temperate grasslands, croplands, deserts, and Arctic tundra).
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