Incentivising farmers to restore some land as habitats for nature could deliver UK climate and biodiversity targets at half the taxpayer cost of integrating nature into land managed for food production, according to a new study published today in the British Ecological Society journal People and Nature.

The research, led by the universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Glasgow, provides the first evidence for the taxpayer savings offered by focusing food production in certain areas to allow the creation of new woods, wetland and scrub habitats on some of the land currently used for farming.

The study suggests that this 'land sparing' approach would cost just 48% of the funds required to achieve the same outcomes for biodiversity and the climate through an approach known as 'land sharing', where conservation measures get mixed into farming by adding hedgerows to fields, reducing pesticides, and so on – all of which lowers food yield.

Additionally, researchers say that trying to share land with nature through making farming more wildlife-friendly would see the UK lose 30% more of its food production capacity than if farmers are encouraged to spare portions of land entirely for creating semi-natural habitats.

The UK Government has legally binding commitments to reverse nature declines by 2030 and reach net-zero carbon by 2050. Sparing land for habitats could hit these targets at half the cost of trying to farm on land shared with nature, say researchers.

“Currently, only a fraction of the £3.2 billion of public money annually paid to farmers goes on biodiversity and climate mitigation, some £600m a year,” said Lydia Collas, who led the study as part of her PhD at Cambridge University’s Department of Zoology.

“Almost all this fraction of funding supports land-sharing approaches that may do little to benefit species or sequester carbon, but do typically reduce food yields. Until now there has been no research on whether this is the most cost-effective solution to delivering environmental targets.”

Cambridge’s Prof Andrew Balmford, senior author of the study, said: “Greater incentives for farmers to create woodlands and wetlands will deliver for wild species and climate mitigation at half the cost to the taxpayer of the land-sharing approach that currently receives ten times more public funding.”

The researchers say their findings – presented at the British Ecological Society’s annual meeting by study co-author Prof Nick Hanley, an environmental economist from the University of Glasgow – should inform the current Brexit-prompted rethink of England’s new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMs).

The Landscape Recovery strand of the ELM is set to receive under 1% of the overall budget next year – a dramatic underspend considering the economic, environmental and food security benefits of a habitat creation approach, argue the scientists.

They say that the revamped Countryside Stewardship Scheme would also deliver far better value for money if it supports farmers to create habitats for nature instead of repeating the largely 'wildlife-friendly' approach of the scheme in its current form. 

“If a two-fold cost saving was identified in other government policy areas, such as health, there would be an outcry,” said Collas, “particularly in the face of the worst recession in a generation.”

The researchers conducted a choice experiment study with 118 farmers responsible for 1.7% of all England’s arable land, asking them to estimate the payments they would require to implement land-sharing practices or habitat-creating 'sparing' approaches on their land.

Farmers chose from a variety of agricultural approaches, nature interventions and, crucially, payment rates. The study also considered the government's costs of administering and monitoring these schemes.

The team used three bird species – yellowhammers, bullfinches and lapwings – as a proxy for effects on biodiversity, as well a range of ways farmers could help slow climate change, such as woodland and hedgerow creation.

On average, farmers in the experiment accepted lower payments per hectare for land sharing practices. However, habitat creation schemes deliver far greater environmental outcomes per hectare, so creating woodlands, wetlands and scrublands would deliver the same overall biodiversity and climate mitigation benefits at half the cost to the taxpayer.

“We found that enough farmers are willing to substantially change their business to benefit from payments for public goods in the form of habitats, provided the government rewards them properly for doing so,” said Balmford.

Collas, now a Policy Analyst at Green Alliance, added: “Existing evidence already shows that semi-natural habitats deliver far more biodiversity and climate mitigation per unit area, and creating them has far less impact on food production than meeting targets through land sharing.

“This evidence is dismissed when thinking about agricultural policy in the UK because of an untested assumption that farmers are unwilling to create natural habitat. We now have evidence showing this assumption is wrong.”

Study of farmer preferences shows that turning whole areas of farmland into habitats comes with half the price tag of integrating nature into productive farmland, if biodiversity and carbon targets are to be met.

Semi-natural habitats deliver far more biodiversity and climate mitigation per unit areaLydia CollasGetty imagesDrone view of agricultural field - a tractor is baling hay next to woodland

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Incentivising farmers to restore some land as habitats for nature could deliver UK climate and biodiversity targets at half the taxpayer cost of integrating nature into land managed for food production, according to a new study published today in the British Ecological Society journal People and Nature.

The research, led by the universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Glasgow, provides the first evidence for the taxpayer savings offered by focusing food production in certain areas to allow the creation of new woods, wetland and scrub habitats on some of the land currently used for farming.

The study suggests that this 'land sparing' approach would cost just 48% of the funds required to achieve the same outcomes for biodiversity and the climate through an approach known as 'land sharing', where conservation measures get mixed into farming by adding hedgerows to fields, reducing pesticides, and so on – all of which lowers food yield.

Additionally, researchers say that trying to share land with nature through making farming more wildlife-friendly would see the UK lose 30% more of its food production capacity than if farmers are encouraged to spare portions of land entirely for creating semi-natural habitats.

The UK Government has legally binding commitments to reverse nature declines by 2030 and reach net-zero carbon by 2050. Sparing land for habitats could hit these targets at half the cost of trying to farm on land shared with nature, say researchers.

“Currently, only a fraction of the £3.2 billion of public money annually paid to farmers goes on biodiversity and climate mitigation, some £600m a year,” said Lydia Collas, who led the study as part of her PhD at Cambridge University’s Department of Zoology.

“Almost all this fraction of funding supports land-sharing approaches that may do little to benefit species or sequester carbon, but do typically reduce food yields. Until now there has been no research on whether this is the most cost-effective solution to delivering environmental targets.”

Cambridge’s Prof Andrew Balmford, senior author of the study, said: “Greater incentives for farmers to create woodlands and wetlands will deliver for wild species and climate mitigation at half the cost to the taxpayer of the land-sharing approach that currently receives ten times more public funding.”

The researchers say their findings – presented at the British Ecological Society’s annual meeting by study co-author Prof Nick Hanley, an environmental economist from the University of Glasgow – should inform the current Brexit-prompted rethink of England’s new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMs).

The Landscape Recovery strand of the ELM is set to receive under 1% of the overall budget next year – a dramatic underspend considering the economic, environmental and food security benefits of a habitat creation approach, argue the scientists.

They say that the revamped Countryside Stewardship Scheme would also deliver far better value for money if it supports farmers to create habitats for nature instead of repeating the largely 'wildlife-friendly' approach of the scheme in its current form. 

“If a two-fold cost saving was identified in other government policy areas, such as health, there would be an outcry,” said Collas, “particularly in the face of the worst recession in a generation.”

The researchers conducted a choice experiment study with 118 farmers responsible for 1.7% of all England’s arable land, asking them to estimate the payments they would require to implement land-sharing practices or habitat-creating 'sparing' approaches on their land.

Farmers chose from a variety of agricultural approaches, nature interventions and, crucially, payment rates. The study also considered the government's costs of administering and monitoring these schemes.

The team used three bird species – yellowhammers, bullfinches and lapwings – as a proxy for effects on biodiversity, as well a range of ways farmers could help slow climate change, such as woodland and hedgerow creation.

On average, farmers in the experiment accepted lower payments per hectare for land sharing practices. However, habitat creation schemes deliver far greater environmental outcomes per hectare, so creating woodlands, wetlands and scrublands would deliver the same overall biodiversity and climate mitigation benefits at half the cost to the taxpayer.

“We found that enough farmers are willing to substantially change their business to benefit from payments for public goods in the form of habitats, provided the government rewards them properly for doing so,” said Balmford.

Collas, now a Policy Analyst at Green Alliance, added: “Existing evidence already shows that semi-natural habitats deliver far more biodiversity and climate mitigation per unit area, and creating them has far less impact on food production than meeting targets through land sharing.

“This evidence is dismissed when thinking about agricultural policy in the UK because of an untested assumption that farmers are unwilling to create natural habitat. We now have evidence showing this assumption is wrong.”

Study of farmer preferences shows that turning whole areas of farmland into habitats comes with half the price tag of integrating nature into productive farmland, if biodiversity and carbon targets are to be met.

Semi-natural habitats deliver far more biodiversity and climate mitigation per unit areaLydia CollasGetty imagesDrone view of agricultural field - a tractor is baling hay next to woodland

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Mexican Waves: The Adaptive Value of Collective Behaviour

The collective behaviour of animals has attracted considerable attention in recent years, with many studies exploring how local interactions between individuals can give rise to global group properties. The functional aspects of collective behaviour are less well studied and relatively few studies have investigated the adaptive benefits of collective behaviour in situations where prey are attacked by predators. This is unsurprising because predator-prey interactions in the field are difficult to observe. Furthermore, the focus in recent studies on predator-prey interactions has been on the collective behaviour of the prey rather than on the behaviour of the predator. In my talk I present a field study that investigated the antipredator benefits of waves produced by fish at the water surface when diving down collectively in response to attacks of avian predators. Fish engaged in surface waves that were highly conspicuous, repetitive, and rhythmic involving many thousands of individuals for up to 2 min. Collective fish waves increased the time birds waited until their next attack and also reduced capture probability in three avian predators that greatly differed in size, appearance and hunting strategy. Taken together, these results support a generic antipredator function of fish waves which could be a result of a confusion effect or a consequence of waves acting as a perception advertisement, which requires further exploration.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Jens Krause, IGB Berlin
• Tuesday 17 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Seeing through the noise: how fish use visual information to navigate in challenging conditions

Navigation, or the ability to accurately and efficiently determine one’s position relative to a goal, underpins many important behaviours. For aquatic animals, visually-guided navigation underwater comes with particular challenges. In addition to an extended range of movement along both the vertical and horizontal axes compared to most terrestrial animals, the appearance of visual cues can change rapidly due to the behaviour of light in water (e.g. attenuation, wave-induced flicker, low-light), reducing the accuracy of landmark identification. In this talk, I will discuss what we can learn from laboratory experiments about the mechanism of visual navigation, including object recognition, distance estimation, and route planning. I will also explore how we can use recent advances in computer vision and photogrammetry to understand the navigation behaviour of wild fish moving within their complex natural environments.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Cait Newport, University of Oxford
• Tuesday 31 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Freshwater salinization: From Ecology & Evolution to Real-World Solutions

Freshwater resources worldwide are threatened by salinization caused by human activities, particularly in regions of the world using salt to clear roads of snow and ice. Salt applications to roads have been occurring for nearly 80 years, but substantial scientific attention to this issue has only taken off during the past decade and there have been many surprising discoveries. In this seminar, Dr. Relyea will present his group’s research on the ecological impacts of freshwater salinization and the ability of freshwater species to evolve increased salt tolerance. He will also discuss the steps that are being taken to reverse this major environmental problem to protect water bodies, while improving road safety and lowering the cost of snow and ice removal for governments and private applicators.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Dr Rick Relyea, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
• Tuesday 14 March 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

The evolution of a sexually selected syndrome in Mediterranean wall lizards

Traits can only function together if expressed together, but the evolution of such phenotypic integration remains poorly understood. In this talk, I will present our recent work on the evolutionary origin and geographic spread of a sexually selected syndrome in wall lizards. Climatic effects on the strength of sexual selection causes a mosaic of phenotypic variation across the landscape, and promotes asymmetric introgression into a distantly related lineage. The phenotypic integration of color, morphology, and behavior persists throughout a hybrid zone, pointing towards a genetic architecture with a single or few major loci. Analyses of genomic data supports this hypothesis and reveals a single candidate region with striking structural variations. I discuss how this genomic architecture can orchestrate the co-expression of color, morphology, and behavior, and what it can teach us about the evolution of complex phenotypes.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Dr Nathalie Feiner, Lund University
• Tuesday 14 February 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Stephen Pates.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Heads and shoulders: progress on the origin of the modern vertebrate body plan

The origin of the jawed vertebrates remains one of the persistent mysteries in vertebrate evolution. Jaws, teeth, and paired fins are widely regarded as vertebrate ‘key innovations’, but their origins remain poorly documented in the fossil record. We know that jawed vertebrates originated more than 420 million years ago, but no fossil intermediates between jawless and jawless vertebrates have ever been confidently identified. Despite remarkable and well-publicised discoveries in recent years, almost none of these have been able to firmly bridge the gap between jawless vertebrate anatomy and modern jawed vertebrates. In this talk, I will present a refreshed view of jawed vertebrate origins and the origins of paired fins, drawing on new fossil data and new interpretations. Debates about the origin of jaws and paired fins have thus been dominated by compelling but speculative theories based on pre-Darwinian ‘idealistic morphology’. By returning to the fundamentals of comparative anatomy, employing high-resolution computed tomography, and integrating biomechanical and comparative developmental knowledge, I will help close the morphological gap between early jawed vertebrates and their nearest jawless relatives. These results will provide surprising new evidence on one of the enduring mysteries of vertebrate evolution: the evolution of a distinct head and shoulder and how this helps us resolve the simultaneous origins of jaws and fins.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Dr Martin D Brazeau, Imperial College London
• Tuesday 24 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Stephen Pates.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Freshwater salinization: From Ecology & Evolution to Real-World Solutions

Freshwater resources worldwide are threatened by salinization caused by human activities, particularly in regions of the world using salt to clear roads of snow and ice. Salt applications to roads have been occurring for nearly 80 years, but substantial scientific attention to this issue has only taken off during the past decade and there have been many surprising discoveries. In this seminar, Dr. Relyea will present his group’s research on the ecological impacts of freshwater salinization and the ability of freshwater species to evolve increased salt tolerance. He will also discuss the steps that are being taken to reverse this major environmental problem to protect water bodies, while improving road safety and lowering the cost of snow and ice removal for governments and private applicators.

• Speaker: Dr Rick Relyea, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
• Tuesday 14 March 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

In research published in Nature Communications, scientists show that the omicron variant of the virus is immunologically distinct from other variants such as the vaccine variant and the alpha and delta variants – that is, exposure to it has a different effect on the neutralising antibody response and hence protection to other variants. But also, sub-variants of omicron are themselves distinct from each other. Their research further suggests that a combination of infection plus vaccination could provide increased protection against future variants.

Since SARS-CoV-2 was first identified in 2020, new variants of the virus have emerged as its genetic code evolves. Some of these variants threaten to spread faster, be more virulent or evade the protection of the vaccine – these are known as ‘variants of concern’.

Antonia Netzl, a PhD student at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, together with colleagues at Cambridge and Innsbruck, analysed data on people’s immune responses to different variants and vaccinations. They used these to create ‘antigenic maps’ and ‘antibody landscapes’ to explore the differences between variants.

A more recent variant of concern is the omicron variant, but since its emergence in December 2021 several sub-lineages have evolved, including BA.1, BA.2, BA.4, BA.5, and BA.2.12.1. Of these, BA.5 became the dominant variant in many countries earlier this year, though new dominant variants have subsequently supplanted it.

Netzl and colleagues found, using their maps, that not only was omicron immunologically distinct from alpha and delta, but its sub-variants BA.1, BA.2 and BA.5 were also distinct from each other. The antibody landscapes, an illustration of people’s immune profile, allowed the researchers to see how vaccination and/or infection with another variant increased virus neutralisation against other viruses.

Netzl, a Gates Cambridge Scholar, said: “We found that people who had been exposed to BA.1 were better protected against BA.2, but the reverse wasn’t true.

“But the good news was that we also found that two distinct exposures – for example, vaccination plus infection with a different variant – increased antibody levels against all variants. So, people who had been vaccinated and then infected with delta, for example, were better protected against omicron than those who had only been vaccinated or infected and not both.”

Netzl says this suggests that an update of the vaccine variant will be beneficial for increasing antibody levels and thereby offering some protection against all currently circulating variants as well as yet-unknown variants.

“Our work suggests that an update of the vaccine variant will be beneficial for increasing antibody levels and thereby protection against all currently circulating variants. The bivalent vaccines, which contain the original prototype variant and an omicron variant in a single vaccine dose, could provide this increased protection.”

The findings are supported by clinical trials and have already been put into practice with the roll-out of the bivalent Prototype+omicron BA.4/5 and Prototype+omicron BA.1 vaccines. 

Although infection by multiple different variants gives the unvaccinated protection too, Netzl points out that vaccinations offer effective protection and reduce the severity of infection.

“People should still make sure they get themselves vaccinated, even if they have already had COVID once. Vaccination is important for boosting our immune response and thereby reducing the risk of infection and symptom severity.”

Netzl said the research, alongside the real-world clinical trials, gives a strong basis to the investigations in vaccine development and design.

This research was carried out at the University of Cambridge and the Janine Kimpel Group at the University of Innsbruck. The co-lead authors were Antonia Netzl and Annika Rössler.

Reference
Rössler, A, Netzl, A, et al. BA.2 and BA.5 omicron differ immunologically from both BA.1 omicron and pre-omicron variants. Nat Comm; 13 Dec 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35312-3

COVID-19 vaccinations that combine two or more distinct variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus could offer protection against both current and future ‘variants of concern’, say scientists at the University of Cambridge and Medical University of Innsbruck.

Our work suggests that an update of the vaccine variant will be beneficial for increasing antibody levels and thereby protection against all currently circulating variantsAntonia NetzlSamuelFrancisJohnsonCoronavirus

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

YesLicence type: Public Domain

In research published in Nature Communications, scientists show that the omicron variant of the virus is immunologically distinct from other variants such as the vaccine variant and the alpha and delta variants – that is, exposure to it has a different effect on the neutralising antibody response and hence protection to other variants. But also, sub-variants of omicron are themselves distinct from each other. Their research further suggests that a combination of infection plus vaccination could provide increased protection against future variants.

Since SARS-CoV-2 was first identified in 2020, new variants of the virus have emerged as its genetic code evolves. Some of these variants threaten to spread faster, be more virulent or evade the protection of the vaccine – these are known as ‘variants of concern’.

Antonia Netzl, a PhD student at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, together with colleagues at Cambridge and Innsbruck, analysed data on people’s immune responses to different variants and vaccinations. They used these to create ‘antigenic maps’ and ‘antibody landscapes’ to explore the differences between variants.

A more recent variant of concern is the omicron variant, but since its emergence in December 2021 several sub-lineages have evolved, including BA.1, BA.2, BA.4, BA.5, and BA.2.12.1. Of these, BA.5 became the dominant variant in many countries earlier this year, though new dominant variants have subsequently supplanted it.

Netzl and colleagues found, using their maps, that not only was omicron immunologically distinct from alpha and delta, but its sub-variants BA.1, BA.2 and BA.5 were also distinct from each other. The antibody landscapes, an illustration of people’s immune profile, allowed the researchers to see how vaccination and/or infection with another variant increased virus neutralisation against other viruses.

Netzl, a Gates Cambridge Scholar, said: “We found that people who had been exposed to BA.1 were better protected against BA.2, but the reverse wasn’t true.

“But the good news was that we also found that two distinct exposures – for example, vaccination plus infection with a different variant – increased antibody levels against all variants. So, people who had been vaccinated and then infected with delta, for example, were better protected against omicron than those who had only been vaccinated or infected and not both.”

Netzl says this suggests that an update of the vaccine variant will be beneficial for increasing antibody levels and thereby offering some protection against all currently circulating variants as well as yet-unknown variants.

“Our work suggests that an update of the vaccine variant will be beneficial for increasing antibody levels and thereby protection against all currently circulating variants. The bivalent vaccines, which contain the original prototype variant and an omicron variant in a single vaccine dose, could provide this increased protection.”

The findings are supported by clinical trials and have already been put into practice with the roll-out of the bivalent Prototype+omicron BA.4/5 and Prototype+omicron BA.1 vaccines. 

Although infection by multiple different variants gives the unvaccinated protection too, Netzl points out that vaccinations offer effective protection and reduce the severity of infection.

“People should still make sure they get themselves vaccinated, even if they have already had COVID once. Vaccination is important for boosting our immune response and thereby reducing the risk of infection and symptom severity.”

Netzl said the research, alongside the real-world clinical trials, gives a strong basis to the investigations in vaccine development and design.

This research was carried out at the University of Cambridge and the Janine Kimpel Group at the University of Innsbruck. The co-lead authors were Antonia Netzl and Annika Rössler.

Reference
Rössler, A, Netzl, A, et al. BA.2 and BA.5 omicron differ immunologically from both BA.1 omicron and pre-omicron variants. Nat Comm; 13 Dec 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35312-3

COVID-19 vaccinations that combine two or more distinct variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus could offer protection against both current and future ‘variants of concern’, say scientists at the University of Cambridge and Medical University of Innsbruck.

Our work suggests that an update of the vaccine variant will be beneficial for increasing antibody levels and thereby protection against all currently circulating variantsAntonia NetzlSamuelFrancisJohnsonCoronavirus

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

YesLicence type: Public Domain

Mexican Waves: The Adaptive Value of Collective Behaviour

The collective behaviour of animals has attracted considerable attention in recent years, with many studies exploring how local interactions between individuals can give rise to global group properties. The functional aspects of collective behaviour are less well studied and relatively few studies have investigated the adaptive benefits of collective behaviour in situations where prey are attacked by predators. This is unsurprising because predator-prey interactions in the field are difficult to observe. Furthermore, the focus in recent studies on predator-prey interactions has been on the collective behaviour of the prey rather than on the behaviour of the predator. In my talk I present a field study that investigated the antipredator benefits of waves produced by fish at the water surface when diving down collectively in response to attacks of avian predators. Fish engaged in surface waves that were highly conspicuous, repetitive, and rhythmic involving many thousands of individuals for up to 2 min. Collective fish waves increased the time birds waited until their next attack and also reduced capture probability in three avian predators that greatly differed in size, appearance and hunting strategy. Taken together, these results support a generic antipredator function of fish waves which could be a result of a confusion effect or a consequence of waves acting as a perception advertisement, which requires further exploration.

• Speaker: Jens Krause, IGB Berlin
• Tuesday 17 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Mexican Waves: The Adaptive Value of Collective Behaviour

The collective behaviour of animals has attracted considerable attention in recent years, with many studies exploring how local interactions between individuals can give rise to global group properties. The functional aspects of collective behaviour are less well studied and relatively few studies have investigated the adaptive benefits of collective behaviour in situations where prey are attacked by predators. This is unsurprising because predator-prey interactions in the field are difficult to observe. Furthermore, the focus in recent studies on predator-prey interactions has been on the collective behaviour of the prey rather than on the behaviour of the predator. In my talk I present a field study that investigated the antipredator benefits of waves produced by fish at the water surface when diving down collectively in response to attacks of avian predators. Fish engaged in surface waves that were highly conspicuous, repetitive, and rhythmic involving many thousands of individuals for up to 2 min. Collective fish waves increased the time birds waited until their next attack and also reduced capture probability in three avian predators that greatly differed in size, appearance and hunting strategy. Taken together, these results support a generic antipredator function of fish waves which could be a result of a confusion effect or a consequence of waves acting as a perception advertisement, which requires further exploration.

• Speaker: Jens Krause, IGB Berlin
• Tuesday 17 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Seeing through the noise: how fish use visual information to navigate in challenging conditions

Navigation, or the ability to accurately and efficiently determine one’s position relative to a goal, underpins many important behaviours. For aquatic animals, visually-guided navigation underwater comes with particular challenges. In addition to an extended range of movement along both the vertical and horizontal axes compared to most terrestrial animals, the appearance of visual cues can change rapidly due to the behaviour of light in water (e.g. attenuation, wave-induced flicker, low-light), reducing the accuracy of landmark identification. In this talk, I will discuss what we can learn from laboratory experiments about the mechanism of visual navigation, including object recognition, distance estimation, and route planning. I will also explore how we can use recent advances in computer vision and photogrammetry to understand the navigation behaviour of wild fish moving within their complex natural environments.

• Speaker: Cait Newport, University of Oxford
• Tuesday 31 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Seeing through the noise: how fish use visual information to navigate in challenging conditions

Navigation, or the ability to accurately and efficiently determine one’s position relative to a goal, underpins many important behaviours. For aquatic animals, visually-guided navigation underwater comes with particular challenges. In addition to an extended range of movement along both the vertical and horizontal axes compared to most terrestrial animals, the appearance of visual cues can change rapidly due to the behaviour of light in water (e.g. attenuation, wave-induced flicker, low-light), reducing the accuracy of landmark identification. In this talk, I will discuss what we can learn from laboratory experiments about the mechanism of visual navigation, including object recognition, distance estimation, and route planning. I will also explore how we can use recent advances in computer vision and photogrammetry to understand the navigation behaviour of wild fish moving within their complex natural environments.

• Speaker: Cait Newport, University of Oxford
• Tuesday 31 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Code supporting: pastclim 1.2: an R package to easily access and use paleoclimatic reconstructions Leonardi, Michela; Manica, Andrea; Hallett, Emily Y This supplementary material contains code (in R) to run the examples. $$ \ $$ Associated data. These are examples that can be used to familiarise with pastclim, an R package to easily access and use palaeoclimatic reconstructions. While the code for the examples is self-explanatory, more information on the software can be found on the following pages: $$ \ $$ Website: https://evolecolgroup.github.io/pastclim/ Github: https://github.com/EvolEcolGroup/pastclim Manual: https://rdrr.io/github/EvolEcolGroup/pastclim/ Vignette (general overview): https://evolecolgroup.github.io/pastclim/articles/a0_pastclim_overview.html Cheatsheet: https://evolecolgroup.github.io/pastclim/pastclim_cheatsheet.pdf $$ \ $$ Please cite the article and the source of the climatic data if using the package.

Freshwater salinization: From Ecology & Evolution to Real-World Solutions

Freshwater resources worldwide are threatened by salinization caused by human activities, particularly in regions of the world using salt to clear roads of snow and ice. Salt applications to roads have been occurring for nearly 80 years, but substantial scientific attention to this issue has only taken off during the past decade and there have been many surprising discoveries. In this seminar, Dr. Relyea will present his group’s research on the ecological impacts of freshwater salinization and the ability of freshwater species to evolve increased salt tolerance. He will also discuss the steps that are being taken to reverse this major environmental problem to protect water bodies, while improving road safety and lowering the cost of snow and ice removal for governments and private applicators.

• Speaker: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
• Tuesday 14 March 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Numerous European seabirds are at risk from climate change, according to new research led by ZSL (The Zoological Society of London) in collaboration with the University of Cambridge.

Researchers have published a first-of-its-kind conservation guide to protecting the 47 species that breed along the Atlantic coastline; offering hope for the future of these important marine birds, by assessing their species-specific needs and laying out the actions needed to preserve each one.

ZSL Institute of Zoology post-doctoral fellow, Henry Häkkinen, who led the production of the guidelines, said: “It’s unthinkable that the Atlantic puffin, one of Europe’s most treasured seabirds, could disappear from our shores by the end of the century – alongside other important marine bird species.

“Seabirds are one of the most threatened groups of birds in the world, with many already seeing rapid global declines due to the impacts of human activity and climate change, including changes to food availability, extreme weather conditions and the loss of breeding grounds.

“These birds face double the challenges as they breed on land but rely on the sea for survival; by living across these two worlds, they are essential to both ecosystems and give us a glimpse into the health of wildlife in otherwise hard-to-monitor areas of the ocean – meaning their loss would impact countless other species and their conservation.”

The two-year project to create the guidelines gathered evidence from more than 80 conservationists and policymakers across 15 European countries, alongside carefully collated information available from scientific papers across 10 different languages.

The pioneering European collaboration is the first to co-develop guidelines in this way, with the team hoping to scale up the project to map the risks to seabirds on a global scale.  

“Seabirds are migratory, flying vast distances overseas and oceans, and so to truly enhance conservation efforts we need to understand how climate change is altering their environment across their entire range. 

“It’s essential to develop strong conservation measures to protect these birds against the climate crisis, but this requires species-specific understanding of the threats that they face. For some birds, like puffins, we have a strong grasp of how climate change impacts them, but for many species, such as eider ducks and ivory gulls, this knowledge is severely lacking. These gaps need to be urgently addressed for us to help these birds to survive.” 

Project lead, ZSL Senior Research Fellow Dr Nathalie Pettorelli added: “The challenges posed by rapid changes in climatic conditions require efficient coordination between science, policy and advocacy to ensure key questions are given research priority and effective conservation actions can be deployed in areas where they are most needed. These seabird conservation guidelines – and the process behind them – provide a vital and transferable framework that can help align efforts to prioritise and implement evidence-based climate change adaptation practices to safeguard a future for the species most at risk. 

“The time to act is now if we are to buffer species from the impacts of climate change.”  

The guidelines will be made available to all conservationists working with seabirds across Europe.

Article adapted from a press release by ZSL.

New conservation guide launched to protect European seabirds at risk from climate change 

The time to act is now if we are to buffer species from the impacts of climate changeNathalie PettorelliSeppo HäkkinenA group of puffins on a cliff at the Farne Islands by Seppo Häkkinen

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Numerous European seabirds are at risk from climate change, according to new research led by ZSL (The Zoological Society of London) in collaboration with the University of Cambridge.

Researchers have published a first-of-its-kind conservation guide to protecting the 47 species that breed along the Atlantic coastline; offering hope for the future of these important marine birds, by assessing their species-specific needs and laying out the actions needed to preserve each one.

ZSL Institute of Zoology post-doctoral fellow, Henry Häkkinen, who led the production of the guidelines, said: “It’s unthinkable that the Atlantic puffin, one of Europe’s most treasured seabirds, could disappear from our shores by the end of the century – alongside other important marine bird species.

“Seabirds are one of the most threatened groups of birds in the world, with many already seeing rapid global declines due to the impacts of human activity and climate change, including changes to food availability, extreme weather conditions and the loss of breeding grounds.

“These birds face double the challenges as they breed on land but rely on the sea for survival; by living across these two worlds, they are essential to both ecosystems and give us a glimpse into the health of wildlife in otherwise hard-to-monitor areas of the ocean – meaning their loss would impact countless other species and their conservation.”

The two-year project to create the guidelines gathered evidence from more than 80 conservationists and policymakers across 15 European countries, alongside carefully collated information available from scientific papers across 10 different languages.

The pioneering European collaboration is the first to co-develop guidelines in this way, with the team hoping to scale up the project to map the risks to seabirds on a global scale.  

“Seabirds are migratory, flying vast distances overseas and oceans, and so to truly enhance conservation efforts we need to understand how climate change is altering their environment across their entire range. 

“It’s essential to develop strong conservation measures to protect these birds against the climate crisis, but this requires species-specific understanding of the threats that they face. For some birds, like puffins, we have a strong grasp of how climate change impacts them, but for many species, such as eider ducks and ivory gulls, this knowledge is severely lacking. These gaps need to be urgently addressed for us to help these birds to survive.” 

Project lead, ZSL Senior Research Fellow Dr Nathalie Pettorelli added: “The challenges posed by rapid changes in climatic conditions require efficient coordination between science, policy and advocacy to ensure key questions are given research priority and effective conservation actions can be deployed in areas where they are most needed. These seabird conservation guidelines – and the process behind them – provide a vital and transferable framework that can help align efforts to prioritise and implement evidence-based climate change adaptation practices to safeguard a future for the species most at risk. 

“The time to act is now if we are to buffer species from the impacts of climate change.”  

The guidelines will be made available to all conservationists working with seabirds across Europe.

Article adapted from a press release by ZSL.

New conservation guide launched to protect European seabirds at risk from climate change 

The time to act is now if we are to buffer species from the impacts of climate changeNathalie PettorelliSeppo HäkkinenA group of puffins on a cliff at the Farne Islands by Seppo Häkkinen

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Discovery of world’s oldest DNA breaks record by one million years.

Discovery of world’s oldest DNA breaks record by one million years.