Resilient protected area network enables species adaptation that mitigates the impact of a crash in food supply

New research led by BTO scientists has examined the effect of food supplies on Oystercatchers in Wales, showing how populations are affected by the availability of prey species, and underlining the importance of alternative foraging areas close by.

Development of a weak-link wing harness for use on large gulls (Laridae): methodology, evaluation and recommendations

New research from BTO has investigated the ways in which to optimise long-term GPS tagging in large gulls, so that sufficient data are collected while birds' welfare needs are met.

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Pinpointing which protected area characteristics help community response to climate warming: waterbirds in the European Union’s Natura 2000 network

New research involving BTO suggests that the management of protected areas in Europe can aid wintering waterbirds species in shifting their ranges north as the climate warms. 

Sensitivity mapping for breeding waders in Britain: towards producing zonal maps to guide wader conservation, forest expansion and other land-use changes. Report with specific data for Northumberland and north-east Cumbria

Breeding waders in Britain are high profile species of conservation concern because of their declining populations and the international significance of some of their populations. Forest expansion is one of the most important, ongoing and large-scale changes in land use that can provide conservation and wider environmental benefits, but also adversely affect populations of breeding waders. We describe models to be used towards the development of tools to guide, inform and minimise conflict between wader conservation and forest expansion.Extensive data on breeding wader occurrence is typically available at spatial scales that are too coarse to best inform waderconservation and forestry stakeholders. Using statistical models (random forest regression trees) we model the predicted relative abundances of 10 species of breeding wader across Britain at 1-km square resolution. Bird data are taken from Bird Atlas 2007–11, which was a joint project between BTO, BirdWatch Ireland and the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club, and modelled with a range of environmental data sets.

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The Icelandic Whooper Swan Cygnus cygnus population: current status and long-term (1986–2020) trends in its numbers and distribution

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