#BOUasm26 – Keynote abstracts
Avian futures: predicting and preparing for the future of avian biodiversity
29 September 2026
Novotel York Centre, York & Zoom & Bluesky
Keynotes
What past surprises tell us about the future of an endangered bird
Robert J. Fletcher
University of Cambridge, UK
Twenty-five years ago, a rapid decline of an endangered, wetland bird, the Everglade Snail Kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus), alarmed scientists and practitioners. And then suddenly, a recovery occurred. What happened? And what do these dramatic changes tell us about future outlooks for conservation? I will describe long-term research across the geographic range of the snail kite in the USA that has identified a series of surprising events over time for this species, the present wicked problems for conservation that have emerged, and how these events inform expectations for the future. The decline and recovery were driven by different factors: extreme climate events led to a sharp decline based on changes in both nest and adult survival, whereas the spread of a highly invasive prey sparked recovery through increases in breeding effort enabled by behavioral and morphological change. Demographic changes over time now inform both near-term forecasts for wetland management and long-term predictions on species persistence to guide recovery policy. While near-term forecasts are highly accurate and provide actionable information for decision making, long-term scenarios are plagued with uncertainty about key climate parameters, anticipation of future surprises, and the ability to balance water for nature and people. I will end by discussing some solutions for future forecasting and reflect on how this system may provide insights for declining species across the planet.
Rob Fletcher is the Miriam Rothschild Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Cambridge. His research interests include conservation, landscape ecology, ornithology, and quantitative science. He has long-term, applied research in the Everglades and in southern Africa. He has published over 160 scientific articles and is the lead author of the book, Spatial Ecology and Conservation Modeling. He is a committed teacher and mentor, having mentored over 40 postgraduate students and postdocs.
Automated insights: transforming the future of bird monitoring
Stephen Pringle
University of Kent, UK
Populations of many bird species are in decline, reflecting the wider biodiversity crisis and threatening the ecological services upon which humanity depends. Birds are highly sensitive indicators of environmental change, yet effective, long-term monitoring across more than 11,000 species and their diverse habitats remains a major scientific and logistical challenge.
Emerging Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) offer a transformative opportunity to rethink how we study and conserve avian biodiversity. From autonomous aerial surveys and acoustic monitoring to intelligent sensor networks and automated species identification, these technologies could greatly expand the scale, precision, and temporal continuity of population monitoring. While significant technical challenges remain, RAS hold the potential to reveal ecological patterns and population trends previously beyond our reach. I will highlight key areas of research where novel technological advances are poised to radically extend RAS capabilities, potentially transforming our understanding of avian biodiversity over the next 30–50 years.
But is this approach truly feasible and desirable? Alongside its promise, might it introduce new risks? How can we use the vast data these systems generate to guide effective conservation action? This keynote will explore how advances in RAS could revolutionize avian monitoring and conservation, envisioning a future in which technology and human expertise work together to better understand, value, and safeguard the planet’s birds.
Stephen, a nuclear physicist turned multidisciplinary scientist, followed a technology-based career spanning real-time software, advanced instruments, motion control, and electronics. Alongside his technological expertise, he nurtures a lifelong passion for birds, ecology and conservation. After completing an MSc in Conservation Biology at DICE in 2016, he became an honorary researcher there. He recently played a key role in a major project investigating how Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) can revolutionize terrestrial biodiversity monitoring.
Predicting escape from climate change in wild bird populations
Jane Reid
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway & University of Aberdeen, UK
Many bird populations are dramatically changing in size and distribution in response to changing climates and habitats. Efficient conservation efforts require not only monitoring current changes, but ideally also adequately predicting future changes. Yet, the ambition to predict future population dynamics is highly challenging. This is not least because, as well as directly impacting demography, ongoing climate and habitat changes could also drive rapid evolution of key aspects of ecology, including life-history, phenology, movement and resulting seasonal distributions. Such rapid evolution could potentially allow populations to persist despite environmental stressors. Yet, novel forms of selection induced by new climatic extremes could also reduce population viability. While predicting the form, rate and outcome of evolution is highly challenging, it is now possible to do so using combinations of widely-collected ornithological field data. I will illustrate this approach using data from partially migratory European Shags (Gulosus aristotelis) in Scotland, and thereby examine whether shags could escape from mortality caused by increasingly severe winter storms through rapid evolution of seasonal migration. I show that extreme storms can alter the form of natural selection acting on seasonal migration versus residence in adults and juveniles, and thereby directly alter seasonal distributions. Yet, despite evidence of underlying heritable genetic variation in migration, the potential for rapid adaptive evolution is highly constrained by spatio-temporal variation. These analyses reveal why evolution may be unable to rescue declining populations from extinction in the context of 21st century environmental change.
Jane Reid obtained her BA at the University of Cambridge and her PhD at the University of Glasgow. She held research fellowships at the University of British Columbia and University of Cambridge. She is now a professor of population and evolutionary ecology at Norwegian University of Science & Technology and University of Aberdeen. Her main interest is in understanding how bird populations will respond to environmental changes through combinations of ecological, phenotypic and evolutionary change.
Understanding future biodiversity change to help inform environmental policies and targets: evidence needs and opportunities
Paul Woodcock
JNCC, UK
Environmental policy and decision-making is faced with complex questions about future biodiversity change, such as what effect different policy choices might have, how conservation objectives can be balanced with other priorities, and how biodiversity targets can be achieved. These questions are viewed both in relation to risks of future biodiversity decline and emphasis on how to achieve nature recovery. As such, there are increasing policy requirements for projections of how biodiversity might be affected by different types of environmental, policy, and socioeconomic changes. These require evidence and models that link environmental drivers (e.g. land use, pollution, climate etc.) through to projections of future biodiversity change.
Birds frequently form part of these projections because of the breadth of data available but there are still important challenges which, if not effectively addressed, will undermine confidence in projections and affect the reliability of decision-making. This presentation will discuss some of these needs, relating particularly to the availability and synthesis of data and evidence, validation and uncertainty in models, diversity of modelling approaches, and communication of outputs. The increasing policy emphasis on biodiversity projections means this is likely to become an important application of bird data and evidence, and so may stimulate opportunities for new data collection and analyses, as well as systems for integrating evidence and approaches.
I work at JNCC in the Ecosystems Analysis team, which includes large-scale citizen science biodiversity monitoring partnerships, Earth Observation, and data analysis. I currently manage the Biodiversity Pathways programme, which aims to develop resources and evidence in relation to biodiversity scenarios and modelling – current emphasis focuses particularly on biodiversity indicators in collaboration with UKCEH and BTO. I also work on how DNA methods can be effectively integrated into environmental monitoring, and previously managed JNCC input to large-scale bird monitoring schemes run and funded in partnership with BTO and RSPB.
Scientific Programme Committee
Emily G. Simmonds (Chair) | University of Edinburgh, UK & BOU Meetings Committee
Matthew Grainger | Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Norway
Lucy R. Mason | Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, UK
Phil Atkinson | British Trust for Ornithology, UK