MLSG

Migrant Landbird Study Group

Promoting collaborative research for migratory landbirds across flyways

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Joining and being involved with the MLSG is simple. Just sign up now and prepare and post your profile detailing who you are, what you work on and any specifics of getting involved in meetings, training and mentoring. You will then be part of the MLSG network: people can find you to collaborate and share knowledge, and of course, you can also do the same. There is no membership fee: maintaining your profile annually is the only criteria for active membership, which puts you on the list for early information and reduced rates at MLSG meetings and events.

The MLSG – Migratory Landbird Study Group – is a network to connect people working on migrant landbirds, whether pure research or their conservation, to facilitate both. Collaboration and communication make a difference – particularly when the solution to understanding and conserving migrants must involve all of us on the flyways working together.

The Turtle Dove is in rapid decline, also in The Netherlands. There are various plausible causes for this unprecedented decline in most of Western Europe. Research points out the detrimental impact of our modern farmland practices. But what do our Turtle Doves encounter in their wintering quarters in Africa? And does hunting play a decisive role? Or could it even be that an outbreak of the Trichomonas disease is giving them the final blow?


In order to know the potential impacts of these various causes and their relative contribution we started a research project with a master student at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Our aim is to develop a matrix population model based on the best available ecological and demographical information. Although we acknowledge that we are currently lacking a lot of the required demographic parameter values, we still think it is valuable to develop such a modelling approach. Besides the fact that we have no time to lose and should use every opportunity there is to analyse the existing data in an integrative way we also think that even with incomplete data we can get meaningful outcomes of a model. By exploring the model, using alternative scenarios, we hope to be able to point at those pressure factors that are most closely related to the decline. With this modelling exercise we hope to inform conservation research and to contribute to a future research agenda.

Master student Lisenka de Vries
Supervisors: Eelke Jongejans (Radboud University, Nijmegen), Ruud Foppen (Sovon Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology)
Email contact address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

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