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The behaviour and population ecology of seabirds is an
important indicator of the wide scale effects of changing climatic
conditions. Changes in oceanic resources and ecosystem health have
unforeseen effects on the behaviour and ecology of such animals.
Procellariiformes (Albatrosses, Petrels, Prions and Shearwaters) in
particular, with their ocean wandering lifestyles, are global
integrators of marine resources and alterations in their migratory
patterns and foraging behaviour may be indicative of critical changes in
ocean health.
Despite their pivotal position in the future of our
understanding of global ecology, their elusive lifestyles have made
these animals notoriously hard to study. By combining advanced
wireless sensor networks with state of the art GPS tracking research at
Oxford University we will create a platform for automatically monitoring
the birds’ feeding and foraging behaviour. We aim to determine exactly
how variables such as the state of the chick and each parent, activity
at the colony, temperature and humidity, interact to influence a bird’s
decisions about when next to return to feed its chick, and about its
detailed foraging decisions at sea.
Research Team
- Robin Freeman (Microsoft Research)
- Alexander Brändle (Microsoft Research)
- Prof Tim Guilford (University of Oxford)
In collaboration with the Countryside Commission for Wales (CCW) and
the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales.
View the project website. |