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- Bauer, Silke, et al.
(författare)
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From Agricultural Benefits to Aviation Safety : Realizing the Potential of Continent-Wide Radar Networks
- 2017
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Ingår i: BioScience. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0006-3568 .- 1525-3244. ; 67:10, s. 912-918
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Migratory animals provide a multitude of services and disservices-with benefits or costs in the order of billions of dollars annually. Monitoring, quantifying, and forecasting migrations across continents could assist diverse stakeholders in utilizing migrant services, reducing disservices, or mitigating human-wildlife conflicts. Radars are powerful tools for such monitoring as they can assess directional intensities, such as migration traffic rates, and biomass transported. Currently, however, most radar applications are local or small scale and therefore substantially limited in their ability to address large-scale phenomena. As weather radars are organized into continent-wide networks and also detect "biological targets," they could routinely monitor aerial migrations over the relevant spatial scales and over the timescales required for detecting responses to environmental perturbations. To tap these unexploited resources, a concerted effort is needed among diverse fields of expertise and among stakeholders to recognize the value of the existing infrastructure and data beyond weather forecasting.
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| 2. |
- Becciu, Paolo, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental effects on flying migrants revealed by radar
- 2019
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Ingår i: Ecography. - : Wiley. - 0906-7590 .- 1600-0587.
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Migratory animals are affected by various factors during their journeys, and the study of animal movement by radars has been instrumental in revealing key influences of the environment on flying migrants. Radars enable the simultaneous tracking of many individuals of almost all sizes within the radar range during day and night, and under low visibility conditions. We review how atmospheric conditions, geographic features and human development affect the behavior of migrating insects and birds as recorded by radars. We focus on flight initiation and termination, as well as in-flight behavior that includes changes in animal flight direction, speed and altitude. We have identified several similarities and differences in the behavioral responses of aerial migrants including an overlooked similarity in the use of thermal updrafts by very small (e.g. aphids) and very large (e.g. vultures) migrants. We propose that many aerial migrants modulate their migratory flights in relation to the interaction between atmospheric conditions and geographic features. For example, aerial migrants that encounter crosswind may terminate their flight or continue their migration and may also drift or compensate for lateral displacement depending on their position (over land, near the coast or over sea). We propose several promising directions for future research, including the development and application of algorithms for tracking insects, bats and large aggregations of animals using weather radars. Additionally, an important contribution will be the spatial expansion of aeroecological radar studies to Africa, most of Asia and South America where no such studies have been undertaken. Quantifying the role of migrants in ecosystems and specifically estimating the number of departing birds from stopover sites using low-elevation radar scans is important for quantifying migrant–habitat relationships. This information, together with estimates of population demographics and migrant abundance, can help resolve the long-term dynamics of migrant populations facing large-scale environmental changes.
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| 3. |
- Bowlin, Melissa, et al.
(författare)
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Grand Challenges in Migration Biology
- 2010
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Ingår i: Integrative and Comparative Biology. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1540-7063 .- 1557-7023. ; 50:3, s. 261-279
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Billions of animals migrate each year. To successfully reach their destination, migrants must have evolved an appropriate genetic program and suitable developmental, morphological, physiological, biomechanical, behavioral, and life-history traits. Moreover, they must interact successfully with biotic and abiotic factors in their environment. Migration therefore provides an excellent model system in which to address several of the "grand challenges" in organismal biology. Previous research on migration, however, has often focused on a single aspect of the phenomenon, largely due to methodological, geographical, or financial constraints. Integrative migration biology asks 'big questions' such as how, when, where, and why animals migrate, which can be answered by examining the process from multiple ecological and evolutionary perspectives, incorporating multifaceted knowledge from various other scientific disciplines, and using new technologies and modeling approaches, all within the context of an annual cycle. Adopting an integrative research strategy will provide a better understanding of the interactions between biological levels of organization, of what role migrants play in disease transmission, and of how to conserve migrants and the habitats upon which they depend.
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