#BOU2025 – Keynote abstracts
Frontiers in ornithology: conceptual and methodological innovations in avian research
1 – 3 April 2025
University of Nottingham, UK
Alfred Newton Lecture
Judy Shamoun-Baranes
Synergies between ornithology, technology and movement ecology
The first military radars were deployed in the 1930’s, relational databases were developed in the 1970’s, the global positioning system was opened for public use in the 1980’s and smartphones were reaching consumer markets in the mid 2000’s. It is incredible to imagine the speed with which these and other technologies have entered and influenced ornithological research and how ornithological research has taken these technologies to new frontiers. During my Alfred Newton Lecture, I explore synergies created between ornithology, technology and movement ecology. I will show how our demands for knowledge and the challenges posed by studying bird movement in the wild have pushed our scientific boundaries and technological development, facilitated through interdisciplinary collaboration. One example will be research on the movement ecology of birds throughout the annual cycle and the consequences of different movement strategies, demonstrated through long-term research on gulls where technological approaches and fieldwork provide essential and complementary information. A second example will be quantifying, understanding and modelling the mass movements of birds, where continuous monitoring of the airspace provides a different perspective of avian movement. Through these examples, I aim to show how team science and communication at the interface of ornithology, technology and movement ecology enables us to connect to diverse parts of society.
Judy Shamoun-Baranes is a Professor of Animal Movement Ecology and the head of the Department of Theoretical and Computational Ecology, Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She attained a BSc in Biology and an MSc in Zoology from Tel Aviv University, Israel. After attaining a PhD in Zoology at Tel Aviv University in 2003, she relocated with her family to the University of Amsterdam. Judy leads interdisciplinary research on understanding how intrinsic and environmental factors influence bird movement at different scales in space and time and the consequences of movement strategies. Knowledge about avian movement is used to better understand human wildlife interactions and help develop solutions for wind energy development and aviation safety. Judy has worked closely with partners and stakeholders in meteorology, aviation safety, wind energy and governmental agencies. Her research integrates movement data collected using multi-sensor GPS tracking (www.uva-bits.nl) or radar measurements, environmental data and different modelling approaches. Her team often works on developing methodologies for movement research and she has been championing the development of a European network for radar monitoring of bird movement for many years and invests in the development of e-science infrastructure to support collaborative research.
Keynotes
Cognition and culture in our urban birds
Lucy Aplin
University of Zurich, Switzerland & Australian National University
When innovations arise in human societies, they can spread rapidly through social networks to form new cultural traits––a vital component of our success. A long history of research has now established that other animals can also exhibit social learning and culture. But can cultural traits in animals also emerge and change in response to social and environmental drivers? And can socio-cognitive responses be an important determinant of behavioural flexibility in other species? In this keynote, I summarize how my research addresses these questions, focusing on my recent research project CULTURES-ADAPT that focuses on wild, urban living sulphur-crested cockatoos. Here we use various approaches including wild experiments, large-scale citizen science, and innovative tracking technologies to explore how this large, big-brained and long-lived parrot has successfully adapted to the recent and rapid process of urbanisation in Australia. Altogether, this work highlights how the experience of others can have profound implications for how animals learn about and exploit their local environments, and how social and cognitive processes can interact to determine behavioural responses to human induced rapid environmental change.
Lucy Aplin studied for her PhD jointly at the Australian National University and the University of Oxford. She then held a Junior Research Fellowship at St John’s College, Oxford, before moving to the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany to take up a Group Leader Fellowship. She currently holds joint faculty positions as an Associate Professor at the Australian National University and as a SERI Professorial Fellow at the University of Zurich, and currently leads the ERC-awarded, SERI-funded project CULTURES-ADAPT.
Advances, opportunities and challenges in acoustic monitoring of birds
Simon Gillings
British Trust for Ornithology, UK
Birds are among the most vocal of all taxonomic groups and many monitoring techniques place a strong emphasis on the detection of vocalising individuals. It is no surprise then that the emergence of affordable programmable acoustic recorders and advances in automated sound analysis have facilitated tremendous interest in passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) of birds, wildlife and environmental sounds. PAM provides opportunities to record sounds in impractical places, at unsociable times of day and over longer durations than possible with traditional human observers. Yet these logistical strengths can become costs when faced with countless hours of audio data needing to be processed to find signals of interest. Data derived from these signals may be probabilistic in nature and do not conform to traditional notions of biological records (who/what/where/when) creating challenges for downstream users. Nevertheless, there is growing evidence that PAM can provide valuable insights that complement traditional monitoring tools. In this talk I will review these and other advances, opportunities and challenges and attempt to show where we are and where passive acoustic monitoring could be in the near future.
Simon has worked at BTO for almost 30 years on various ecological and monitoring projects. He currently heads the Data Science and Bioacoustics team whose twin aims are the development of ornithological data products to benefit birds and people, and tools to support acoustic monitoring of birds and other wildlife. Simon combines his passion for birds and data analysis to help shape the Breeding Bird Survey, BirdTrack, Bird Atlases and the BTO Acoustic Pipeline.
Are cities “The Room of Requirement” for birds that link co-culturally with humans?
Nishant Kumar
Ambedkar University Delhi & National Centre for Biological Sciences (TIFR), Bengaluru, India & University of Oxford, UK
Globally, multiple opportunistic taxa, such as kites, macaques, street dogs and livestock, often partake of the human niche, showcasing variable adherence to human norms and practices. Most humans (~65%) now reside in urban centres, which collectively comprise <4% of the total landmass on Earth. Paradoxically, human activities impact >70% of the global terrestrial environment. This situation gives rise to a complex and multifaceted web of human-bird interactions, often characterised by tensions and conflicts. Our research in Delhi focuses on the eco-evolutionary processes underpinning such cross-species co-cultural ties. We are studying how avian scavengers like black kite exploit food-subsidies that are predictably dispersed in the form of garbage and ritual feeding sites. Our research aims to understand how this predictable distribution of resources along the urban gradient influences behavioural innovations in these birds. These interactions often involve significant adaptations or co-option of behavioural and morphological traits, influencing social dynamics and demographic structures. Tropical cities, where urbanisation is a continuous process, offer quasi-experimental opportunities to examine shifts in population- and species-specific socialities of avian scavenges with humans. Historically, these interactions have resulted in wildlife providing important services to humans. Unfortunately, however, such interactions can also easily turn negative, such as when actions aimed at promoting birdlife lead to conflicts, loss of property and invaluable lives of all contestants, and the spread of zoonotic diseases. Interestingly, human–avian scavengers’ coexistence in South Asia represents a distinctive fusion of adopted Western infrastructure and unique Indian ethos. Through this keynote address, I will emphasise why transdisciplinary methodologies are indispensable to comprehend coexistence, while designing and administering vibrant and ‘animated’ tropical cities.
Nishant Kumar is a faculty member at Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi, and a DBT/Wellcome Trust UK India Alliance Fellow at Oxford University’s Biology Department (overseas host), where he completed his D.Phil. His team, THINKPAWS, studies resident and migratory commensals/wildlife in Delhi to understand human-animal interactions and zoonotic disease risks using a One Health approach. Nishant also promotes open science and innovative public engagement with science. He integrates natural and social sciences with humanities to address global challenges, fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration for human-animal coexistence.
Advances in wild bird disease surveillance within the One Health paradigm
Becki Lawson
Institute of Zoology, London, UK
One Health is defined as a ‘collaborative approach that aims to balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems’. Disease in wild birds is increasingly recognised as important, not only to their welfare and conservation, but also to public and captive animal health. Emerging infectious diseases have caused large scale wild bird mortality and population declines, for example the recent highly pathogenic avian influenza panzootic, finch trichomonosis and Usutu virus infection. While connection with nature, often enriched through observation of wild birds, is known to benefit public well-being, some pathogens infecting wild birds have zoonotic potential. Human activity can influence the occurrence of disease in wild birds, for example through invasive species, agriculture, supplementary feeding and climate change. Wild bird disease surveillance therefore provides information for action to help safeguard the health of people, captive and wild animals alike. Approaches have advanced markedly in recent years, capitalising on opportunities afforded by novel digital and diagnostic methodologies. Multidisciplinary networks comprising governmental animal and public health agencies, working in partnership with conservation NGOs, and collaborating with relevant groups such as licensed bird ringers, wildlife rehabilitators, zoological collections, and members of the public, have been developed. Long-term national programmes that provide early warning networks to facilitate rapid detection of emerging threats, and research programmes which inform science-based mitigation guidance for disease prevention and control, are ongoing. This presentation will illustrate the above using international examples, with particular focus on the Garden Wildlife Health and Vector-Borne RADAR projects in the UK.
Becki is a wildlife veterinarian at the Zoological Society of London. Her research focuses on the effects of disease on free-ranging wildlife populations; the epidemiology of pathogen transmission between wildlife, domestic animals and humans; and the role that anthropogenic activity has on these processes. She currently leads the Garden Wildlife Health Project, a national disease surveillance scheme for garden birds, amphibians, hedgehogs and reptiles, in collaboration with the BTO, Froglife and the RSPB.
Science to action through partnerships: applications of eBird data to inform avian conservation and management
Viviana Ruiz Gutierrez
Cornell Lab of Ornithology, USA
Effective avian conservation and management requires reliable and applicable information on the status of bird populations. The overall status of a species is often assessed using changes in distribution or abundance across time, while more specific information needs for conservation decision-making largely focus around where, when and how many, including what factors are driving these patterns. To date, these information needs are best informed by large-scale avian monitoring programs, which are often volunteer-based, and either structured (e.g. Breeding Bird Surbey of North America) or unstructured (e.g. eBird). However, there are also clear benefits of leveraging information of smaller-scale monitoring programs and efforts alongside large-scale data. In this talk, I will present examples of how we’ve worked closely with partners across the public and private sectors to use eBird data and data products, and additional data sources, to directly inform different aspects of the species conservation cycle.
Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez earned her Bachelor’s degree at the National University of Costa Rica in Tropical Biology, and her Doctorate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University, with a strong focus on population biology and quantitative ecology. The focus of her research program is to work at the interface between science and application to deepen our understanding of the social and environmental factors that shape where and when species occur on a given landscape to improve decision-making and conservation. Her research group works on developing and applying novel quantitative modeling techniques to understand how human drivers of land-use change (e.g. agriculture) affect biodiversity using birds as indicators. Her team works collaboratively with practitioners, decision-makers, industry, and local communities to design research that supports the development and implementation of strategies that reconcile biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, and human well-being.
Bird migration through urban landscapes: challenges and opportunities
Benjamin Van Doren
University of Illinois, USA
Avian migrations are spectacular natural phenomena, but human activities can pose acute threats to migratory birds. The urban habitats in which many migratory birds attempt to rest and refuel contain a variety of hazards, including light pollution, predators, vehicles, and reflective surfaces with which many birds collide. Ongoing efforts to address these challenges are hampered by a lack of information about how birds use not only the urban matrix, but also the airspace above it. This talk will highlight recent advances in our understanding of key threats to migratory birds in developed areas—with a focus on light pollution and bird-window collisions—and highlight how new, integrative approaches are shedding light on the link between aerial and terrestrial habitats. In recent years, modern machine learning tools have transformed movement ecology, unlocking the potential of global citizen science databases, continental radar networks and, increasingly, bioacoustic monitoring tools. When combined, these data sources allow us to characterize the distribution and behavior of migrating birds aloft, identify aspects of the built and natural environments that influence airspace usage, and link flight behaviors to collision risk and stopover habitat selection. Integrative approaches are also shedding light on poorly understand dimensions of movement ecology, such as the role of an individual’s social environment during a migratory journey. These new insights are contributing not only to scientific knowledge, but also stimulating public interest and political will to take meaningful conservation action. A broad coalition of stakeholders is essential to meeting the urgent conservation challenges facing migratory birds, especially in urban areas.
Benjamin Van Doren studies the responses of migratory birds to environmental change. His research spans spatial and population scales and unites ecology, evolution, behavior, and conservation. Benjamin earned a PhD in Zoology from Oxford University, and he has received achievement awards from the American Ornithological Society, Linnean Society of London, and Zoological Society of London. Benjamin recently joined the University of Illinois, where he leads the Migration Biology Lab.
Using DNA metabarcoding to investigate links between diet and reproductive success in rural and urban Blue Tits
Andreanna Welch
Durham University, UK
Urbanisation has dramatically transformed the world, altering habitat composition, the environment, and food availability for wildlife. Understanding the factors that influence species’ success in these increasingly common settings is crucial for maintaining biodiversity in a rapidly urbanising world. During the winter urban birds often experience warmer temperatures and have access to supplemental food in cities, which may facilitate survival, however reproductive success is often lower. The Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) exemplifies this paradox. By employing cutting-edge DNA metabarcoding, we explored how urbanisation impacts the diet of Blue Tits during nestling development, as overwintering adults, and during energetically demanding chick rearing. We also conducted a brood manipulation experiment to assess the impact of increased brood sizes on chick diet and survival. We found that with increasing urbanisation clutch size decreases and chicks have both a lower occurrence and abundance of caterpillars in their diet, along with lower fledging success. In winter and spring, urban adult diets include more low-quality arthropods and anthropogenic food items like sunflower seeds, grains, and peanuts. Interestingly, there was no relationship between urbanisation and the occurrence of Lepidoptera, though urbanisation appears to affect the foraging strategies of males and females differently. In both urban and rural habitats experimentally increasing brood size led to increased nestling mortality and chicks were in poorer condition at fledging, suggesting that blue tit clutches may be optimized for their local environment. Overall, reduced clutch sizes and poor-quality diet for chicks are likely causes of the poor breeding success in urban blue tits.
Andreanna Welch is an Associate Professor in molecular ecology and evolutionary genomics at Durham University. She is broadly interested in how people and biodiversity can successfully coexist. Projects have included using ancient DNA to understand changes in population size and genetic diversity in the endangered Hawaiian petrel (Pterodroma sandwichensis), and using DNA metabarcoding to examine diet competition in migratory and resident birds during the winter, and explore if birds consume crop pests on farms.
Scientific Programme Committee
Christine Howard | Durham University, UK & BOU Meetings Committee (Chair)
Ailidh Barnes | British Trust for Ornithology
Claire Buchan | University of East Anglia, UK
Oliver Leedham | UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Marius Somveille | University College London, UK