Frontiers in ornithology | #BOU2025

1 April 2025

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3 April 2025

IN-PERSON (INTERNATIONAL)

Nottingham, UK & Bluesky
BOU 2025 annual conference

UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM, UK
VENUE

Frontiers in ornithology: conceptual and methodological innovations in avian research


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Programme

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Aims and scope

Ornithologists are increasingly making use of cutting-edge technologies and other novel approaches to stem the tide of avian extinctions and diversity loss caused by human impacts. With recent rapid technological advancements, increases in computational power, and improvements in wider accessibility, these new approaches could be game-changing for future conservation efforts. Alongside identifying the key threats to individual species, modern technologies and innovative approaches allow us to ask new questions and readdress old challenges, providing exciting insights into avian physiology, behaviour, and population dynamics. Now is the time to bring together researchers, conservationists, and policy makers working at the cutting edge of ornithological research and conservation to share their knowledge on how innovative technologies and novel approaches can help us find solutions to conserve birds in a changing world.


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

Read keynote abstracts and bios


Lucy Aplin

University of Zurich, Switzerland & Australian National University

Cognition and culture in our urban birds
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Simon Gillings

British Trust for Ornithology, UK

Advances, opportunities and challenges in acoustic monitoring of birds
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Nishant Kumar
Ambedkar University Delhi & National Centre for Biological Sciences (TIFR), Bengaluru, India & University of Oxford, UK

Are cities “The Room of Requirement” for birds that link co-culturally with humans?
xxxxx

Becki Lawson
Institute of Zoology, London, UK

Advances in wild bird disease surveillance within the One Health paradigm
xxxxx
xxxxx

Viviana Ruiz Gutierrez
Cornell Lab of Ornithology, USA

Science to action through partnerships: applications of eBird data to inform avian conservation and management
xxxxx
xxxxx

Benjamin Van Doren
University of Illinois, USA

Bird migration through urban landscapes: challenges and opportunities
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Andreanna Welch
Durham University, UK

Using DNA metabarcoding to investigate links between diet and reproductive success in rural and urban Blue Tits
xxxxx


Parallel conference format

The BOU aims to run inclusive and accessible events. One way we seek to achieve this is by delivering our conferences in parallel on a freely accessible social media platform. From 2025 onwards, this will be Bluesky.

All presenters at our conferences will be invited to post a summary of their presentation on Bluesky, and will be provided with helpful guidelines to support them in doing so. No conference registration, or Bluesky account, is required to view these presentations.

Social media has broadened the reach of our conferences, attracting a significantly larger and more diverse audience than meetings without this element.

You can view previous BOU conferences on Bluesky here:
BOU2024
BOUasm24
BOUsci24


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


Image credits
Bar-headed Geese | Imran Shah CC BY-SA 2.0 Wikimedia Commons
Western Black-eared Wheatear | mourad-harzallah CC BY 4.0 Wikimedia Commons
Griffon Vulture | Pierre Dalous CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons


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