Research interests

I have a long lasting interest in biology, especially in evolutionary and movement ecology. Growing up on an island in the south-eastern Baltic Sea it was easy to grow fond of birds and their migrations. When I also came in contact with bird ringing I was stimulated to ask questions about why and how birds travel vast distances (and of course; why some don’t?) during their annual cycle, and how these journeys interplay with other aspects of a birds life.

The main focus for my PhD project is how and why migration strategies and flight performance, i.e. duration of migration, numbers of stopovers and duration of individual flights, differ between individuals and populations of different wader species. It is likely that other aspects of a bird’s annual cycle, such as moult and breeding, affect the strategies during the migration. Therefore I am in particular interested in these individuals and populations that migrate different distances and/or breeds and winters in different climatic regimes. Data will be collected using light level geolocators and activity loggers. In addition, I will study different aspects of aerodynamics of waders and energy consumption during flight, using the Lund University wind tunnel. The main aim with my project is to gain further understanding in the evolution of migration strategies and large-scale migration patterns in waders.