On Wednesday (May 14), Astrid A. Carlsen nailed up her thesis “Understanding predators through their prey” in the Aqua room at Ultuna in Uppsala.
– It feels both terrible and wonderful at the same time. When I started this project four years ago, my main goal was to better understand the foraging conditions that seabirds have adapted to exploit. However, the results of this thesis serve a greater purpose – to highlight the need to consider animals’ foraging behaviour and habitat use when trying to mitigate biodiversity loss, says Astrid.
In her thesis Understanding predators through their prey, Astrid investigates how deep-diving seabirds, especially common guillemot (Uria aalge) and razorbills (Alca torda), find food in the ocean and how their behaviour is influenced by variation in the marine environment.
Astrid has, for example, used GPS loggers and pressure sensors to track the birds, as well as new technology such as an unmanned sailing drone equipped with echo sounders, to map where fish are located and how seabirds search for and exploit them. The study shows, among other things, that common guillemots and razorbills use different strategies to find food and respond differently to changes in prey availability.
Astrid also investigated whether the distance that all the world’s seabirds fly to find food during the breeding season is related to their wing size, and concludes that they are very poorly protected while foraging.
Astrid together with main supervisor Jonas Hentati Sundberg.
Would you like to attend the defence? You are warmly welcome to Uppsala on Wednesday, June 4 at 1 PM.
When: Wednesday, June 4, 1:00–4:00 PM.
Where: Lennart Kenne’s room, BioCentre, SLU Ultuna campus.
Join online: Zoom. Passcode: 283141.