Rob van Bemmelen

I'm super excited to share our new paper on Norwegian lemming genomics just published in @pnas.org!! Read the paper here: www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10....
Summary ⬇️

Mass mortality of Black-legged Kittiwakes, Norway, 2023: more than 15,000 birds dead, population reduction of 50%. genotype EA-2022-BB
👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Kabinet wil uitstoot stikstof in 2035 halveren Vrijdag komt het kabinet met de contouren van het nieuwe stikstofbeleid. Leidend daarbij wordt de uitstoot van stikstof bij de bron, dus bij boeren en bedrijven zelf.

Zoals verwacht komt de Ministeriële commissie Economie en Natuurherstel niet met een oplossing voor de stikstofproblematiek. Het kabinet kiest ervoor om de natuur verder te laten verslechteren en ondernemers nog eens 10 jaar in onzekerheid te laten zitten. nos.nl/artikel/2564...

Migratory Birds Advance Spring Arrival and Egg‐Laying in the Arctic, Mostly by Travelling Faster A warming climate is affecting the phenology of life on earth, including when birds migrate and start breeding. We show that earlier arrival is a general pattern also for birds travelling to the Arct...

🚨Publication in @globalchangebio.bsky.social by Lameris et al.

→ Early snowmelt = earlier egg-laying, but only 2 waterfowl arrived earlier.
→ Over time, most arrived earlier—regardless of snowmelt or laying.
→ Why? Faster migration: shorter stopovers = earlier arrival.

🔗 doi.org/10.1111/gcb....

NEW PAPER in #ornithology shows that the survival of migratory #seabirds (Arctic skuas) has decreased in the last decades, but is not related to large-scale ocean indices: www.int-res.com/abstracts/me...

And: thin black vertical line along the bill base. Nice bird!

Working on avian vagrancy? @pauldufour80.bsky.social and myself are organising a symposium at the EOU Conference 2025 at Bangor University, Wales (UK) from 18-22 August 2025 #Ornithology please submit abstracts to: auth.oxfordabstracts.com?redirect=/st... 🪶🌍

Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century Numerous declines have been documented across insect groups, and the potential consequences of insect losses are dire. Butterflies are the most surveyed insect taxa, yet analyses have been limited in ...

Our paper is out, and it is distressing.

Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

...past. These visited platforms could be prioritized when surveying platforms for breeding kittiwakes. 6/6 @waardenburgeco.bsky.social @sovonvogels.bsky.social

...in June in the Dutch sector of the North Sea, based on aerial surveys. It remains unclear what part of these breed on platforms. Our tagged kittiwakes visited several (up to 7) other platforms, including platforms where breeding has been observed in the... 5/6

...habitat for the species -- our only breeding kittiwakes are those on platforms. The first report of breeding on platforms stems from 2000. There is very scant information on breeding numbers since then. For the past six years, up to several 10 000s kittiwakes were estimated to be present... 4/6

...changed temporally. There was a sudden drop in distances about a week after tagging, which we interpreted as the start of the chick-phase. Then, distances increased during chick-rearing and dropped again during the post-fledging period. In the Netherlands, we don't have natural breeding... 3/6

...colonies of the same size. We suggest this is because they can venture in all directions and therefore have reduced density-dependence around the colony compared to coastal colonies that have less access to sea area. With data well into September, we could show how max trip distances... 2/6

New #OA paper in the #seabird journal (@theseabirdgroup.bsky.social)! We GPS-tracked Black-legged #Kittiwakes breeding on an offshore platform in the Dutch sector of the North Sea. In short, we show that they have a short foraging range compared to coastal... 1/6
www.seabirdgroup.org.uk/seabird-37

Infographic map showing the six marine flyways (Atlantic Ocean Flyway, North Indian Ocean Flyway, East Indian Ocean Flyway, West Pacific Ocean Flyway, Pacific Ocean Flyway, Southern Ocean Flyway) in a spilhaus projection, and the general direction of travel by migratory seabirds

🚨NEW OPEN ACCESS PAPER🚨details how we delineated six #MarineFlyways using #seabird #tracking data & novel analytical methods

➡️ doi.org/10.1111/geb.70004

🧪 #ornithology #migration #BLScience
@birdlifeglobal.bsky.social

We are grateful to GOBI @iki-germany.bsky.social for funding the project

🧵1/5

The pollution fast-track to the Arctic: how southern wintering areas contribute to organochlorine loads in a migrant seabird breeding in the Arctic Abstract. This study examines how southern wintering areas may contribute to organochlorine (OCs) loads in arctic seabirds during breeding. Light-sensitive

Bustnes et al. The pollution fast-track to the Arctic: how southern wintering areas contribute to organochlorine loads in a migrant seabird breeding in the Arctic academic.oup.com/etc/advance-... #ornithology #teamskua

🚨NEW OPEN ACCESS PAPER🚨details how we delineated six #MarineFlyways applying a novel approach onto #seabird #tracking data: doi.org/10.1111/geb.70004 🧪

See the short animation via: www.seabirdtracking.org/case-studies... explaining how the marine flyways can be a framework to support #conservation

... positively impacting the performance of the parents in the subsequent breeding season, leading to improved young survival prospects. 3/3

Interestingly, models also indicated an increased young survival following an El Niño winter. We suggest this time-lagged effect reflects downstream propagation of environmental conditions, particularly food availability, or a potential carry-over effect of El Niño conditions... 2/3

Wintering, rather than breeding, oceanic conditions may modulate declining survival in a long-distance migratory seabird KEY WORDS: Mortality · Carry-over effects · CMR modelling · Stercorarius parasiticus

The second paper, led by Kat Snell and Ines dos Santos (at @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social), is about Arctic Skuas breeding at the Faroe Islands. Here, analysis of 24 years of ringing data suggests strong declines in the survival rates of both adults and juveniles. 1/3 doi.org/10.3354/meps...

... in wintering areas, with birds from single breeding sites wintering in areas across the Atlantic (see movementecologyjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....). We found that which and how much organochlorine contaminants are present in Arctic Skua blood depends on the wintering area. 2/2

The pollution fast-track to the Arctic: how southern wintering areas contribute to organochlorine loads in a migrant seabird breeding in the Arctic Abstract. This study examines how southern wintering areas may contribute to organochlorine (OCs) loads in arctic seabirds during breeding. Light-sensitive

Happy to share two new papers on Arctic Skuas where I contributed. First: a paper led by Jan Ove Bustnes (@ninanatureresearch.bsky.social) on pollutants found in the blood of Arctic Skuas breeding on Svalbard and at Slettnes. Arctic Skuas show large variation...
academic.oup.com/etc/advance-... 1/2

Our new paper, based on data from 1,705 studies, shows that pesticides are toxic to organisms they are not intended to harm, including fungi, microbes, plants, insects, & vertebrates such as ourselves. Questions the wisdom of applying over 3 million tonnes of them every year...

Peatlands occupy just 3% of all land but contain more carbon than all of the world’s forests.
Often overlooked: typically flat, wet, often inaccessible, not always picturesque & all the carbon they hold is hiding below the surface.
80% of the UK bogs are degraded by draining, overgrazing, burning.

In the most untouched, pristine parts of the Amazon, birds are dying. Scientists may finally know why Populations have been falling for decades, even in tracts of forest undamaged by humans. Experts have spent two decades trying to understand what is going on

Sobering. When I talk to people about long-term bird population declines in N America, I mention that the main cause is habitat loss, not climate change - yet. But new research shows that climate change is causing bird declines even in otherwise pristine places. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

@jeroen-reneerkens.bsky.social

(PDF) Presumed hybrid Common Sterna hirundo x Sandwich Tern S. sandvicensis PDF | Record of presumed (breeding) hybrid Common x Sandwich Tern on Texel, the Netherlands | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

Interesting paper, but a pity that it missed this intriguing example of an intergeneric hybrid between Sandwich and Common Tern: www.researchgate.net/publication/...

A thread on quite how incredible the Texel Spectacled Eider record is, given that almost the entire world population (~250K) winters together around 62°00'N, 173°00'W in polynyas - gaps in the sea ice in the Bering Sea, like the ones below👇 🧵#Ornithology 1/

Seabird 36 is now live! Head to this link to take a read -> seabirdgroup.org.uk/seabird-36