Institute of Avian Research 'Vogelwarte Helgoland'

🪶 New Research - Estimating epidemiological parameters of highly pathogenic avian influenza in common terns using exact Bayesian inference ➡️ buff.ly/dYGDjhN

Ecosystems mediate climate impacts on northern hemisphere seabirds - Communications Earth & Environment Diet diversity across northern hemisphere ecosystems affects seabird responses to climate change, with breeding productivity declining in the Arctic and North Atlantic but not in the Pacific from 1993 to 2019, based on 138 time series of breeding success and linear mixed effects models.

🪶Diet diversity across northern hemisphere ecosystems affects seabird responses to climate change, with breeding productivity declining in the Arctic and North Atlantic but not in the Pacific from 1963 to 2020.

👉Read more here:
www.nature.com/articles/s43...

A nice thread highlighting key findings from our new paper estimating parameters of #HPAI in subsequent outbreaks in common terns. We developed a Bayesian inference approach to infer parameters from just carcass counts. #seabirds #statisticalecology #diseaseecology

doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Out @animalecology.bsky.social today - a paper with David Ewing in which we explore the #HPAI outbreak in the terns. We find bird-to-bird transmission to be the main driver of infection and estimate the probability of mortality to drop from 0.26 to 0.14 from 2022 to 2023: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

We are happy to introduce you to another member of our society, María Jesús García Bianco!

the 5 study species: Dunnock, Northern Wheatear, European Robin, Common Redstart, Garden Warbler

NEW PUBLICATION on stopover ecology of Songbirds during spring migration: After packmor et al. 2020 (Mov Ecol) found that trans-Saharan migrants react differently to weather for migratory departure, we aked ourselves, whether this is also valid for spring migration? 🐦
a thread 🧵 on 7 hypotheses:

When we hypothesised female terns to have lower mercury levels than males due to egg laying, @matteobeccardi.bsky.social et al designed an elegant experiment to prove the effectiveness of this pathway. That proof just got published & the open access paper can be found here: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Out now in Environmental Pollution: 'Experimental evidence for maternal offloading of mercury pollution via reproduction'
By @matteobeccardi.bsky.social, @commonternproject.bsky.social, @pablosalmon.bsky.social, @icbm-uol.bsky.social & @oscarvedder.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2025.127121

I'm happy to share with you our new paper out now in Environmental Pollution!
Here, we experimentally studied the maternal offloading of mercury pollution via reproduction in an avian model species.

Read the paper here for more details👇
doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

🚨 PhD alert 🚨 We are looking for a highly motivated student to use 🧬 genomics 🧬 and 🛰️ bio-logging 🛰️ approaches to disentangle cultural and genetic contributions to seabird migration 🐣 Think this is you, or someone you know? Then come to our Q&A session at on 29/09 and check out the ad below!

Congratulations Anna!!!

Spread the word: we’re #hiring! We offer two short-term #fellowships for master’s degree holders and PhD candidates for 6-12 months to excellent researchers, who are interested in doing research within one dedicated project of our SFB/CRC 1372. Find more information on www.sfb1372.de/jobs

So much cool avian vagrancy research presented and discussed at our #EOU2025 symposium today. Thanks to everyone who presented and attended @pauldufour80.bsky.social
@joewynnbirds.bsky.social
#Ornithology

📌 I really enjoyed @pablosalmon.bsky.social’s talk at #EOU2025! 🐦
Exploring how #mitochondria may shape avian #migration — lessons from Eurasian #blackbirds with different strategies.
Great insights into the energetic basis of life-history strategies!

Out now in Environmental Research – Anna’s new paper in which she assesses the levels of 118 contaminants in unhatched eggs and dead chicks found in the last and endangered population of gull-billed terns in Central Europe, breeding at Neufelderkoog: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Light trap that looks like a ghost or a jellyfish

Biologists at work: light trapping in the night

Here we go again: field resesarch 🧪🌳✨️
First #LightTrapping session for our @sfb1372.bsky.social #arthropod #biodiversity project in collaboration with @robertrollins1892.bsky.social in @genmig.bsky.social lab from the @ifv-whv.bsky.social 💡🦋 🕷🪲🦟
I just love the trap that looks like a 👻! Or 🪼?

Ooooh, one of our beautiful terns made it to the cover of the issue of Ethology that contains Melina's study on individual behavioral responses to novel stimuli: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

thanks a lot to all who attended, and made it such a wonderful event - full of cool science, great talks & posters, thought provoking discussions, lovely chats with wonderful peope, beautiful and very hot venue ☀️

bonus content: artsy highlight by Lukas Weiss - his programme summary in snippets 🦄🧬🧪

New publication by @commonternproject.bsky.social with @coralinebcht.bsky.social, @mmoiron.bsky.social, @matteobeccardi.bsky.social & @icbm-uol.bsky.social: 'Mercury levels in chicks of a long-lived seabird – parental effects and links with growth and survival'. doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Special thanks to this year's organizer of the Neuroethology GRC, Julie Simpson & @genmig.bsky.social. We had a fantastic week of great science, met colleagues or started collaborations. We are looking forward to the next GRC in 2 years.

2027 Co-Vice chairs: Jessica Fox & @scottjuntti.bsky.social

And here it is - Justine's last thesis chapter got accepted too and can now be read as an open access paper in Environmental Research: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Our neighbours at the Banter See are no fan of the terns. Luckily the terns don't give a shit. Oh, or maybe sometimes they do. :-)

Hatching is hard work. ❤️

Arrival was earlier, but it does not look like we are going to end up with many more birds this year than last. I guess the 'silent reservoir' was used up, such that we now wait for new recruits from last year's cohort to start making up for the severe losses HPAI induced in 2022 and 2023.

Three weeks ago, the little one on the picture on the left was found cold and almost dead. But yesterday, it was the first chick from 'island A' to get its transponder. Happy fledging, little survivor. May you recruit to produce many little survivors yourself. ❤️

134 grams of loveliness. ❤️

The facial expression of a parent with teenagers. I can relate. 😂

Weekend loveliness: retrapping a gull-billed tern carrying a GPS and getting to know a few of the newest colony members.

The tracking of the gull-billed terns of @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social is going really well and we're seeing lots of interesting variation in space use. Here's two examples of tracks collected across the last 8 days:

Individual routes of common terns Sterna hirundo are adaptive: they can be flexibly adjusted to environmental variation, as shows Kürten et al. in a new paper based on data from light-level geolocators. Read more on doi.org/10.1098/rspb... . @birgenhaest.bsky.social