Smoothed trend 1992-2025 of most Dutch butterflies from Dutch Butterfly Monitoring transects. The color indicates the linear trend over the whole period. Each line starts at a value of 100. The black dot gives the 2025 index value.
Posts by Rob van Bemmelen
De EU bereidt een cadeautje voor pesticidenreuzen voor. Dit is een en al een nachtmerrie voor de rest van ons. Ja, voor goedkeuring—voor altijd. Ja, zonder veiligheidstests. En, ja, dit is echt. Teken nu om het te stoppen. action.wemove.eu/sign/2025-12...
Arctic Jaeger or Arctic Skua sitting on ice against soft blue background. Updated population estimate published in new BCI paper. © Ondrej Prosicky/Shutterstock
🧮 How many Arctic Jaegers are there around the world?
📝 An updated global estimate of breeding population size for this migratory seabird: doi.org/10.1017/S095...
#BirdConservation #Ornithology #Research #Arctic #Skua #Jaeger #migration #population
Image of an Arctic Skua with wording at the bottom that reads: New Study. Global population status of the migratory Holarctic species Arctic Skua. www.bto.org/Arctic-Skua-Populations. BTO logo top right.
1/ Arctic Skuas are on the UK Birds of Conservation Concern Red List. But new BTO-led research reveals just how much we don’t know about their numbers globally. Discover more. ⬇️ #Ornithology #Seabirds
📖 www.bto.org/Arctic-Skua-...
What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.
It's *scientific publishing*.
We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.
Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...
Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇
Our team analysed the correlation of N deposition with numbers of territories of 112 Swiss breeding birds species. Insectivous and herbivorous species were more negatively associated with N deposistion, as well as ground-nesting species. Read more here: doi.org/10.1111/cobi...
Perspective Who gets the spotlight? Disparities in seabird research attention at scientific conferences Ingrid L. Pollet a b Alexander L. Bond b c Jennifer L. Lavers b c d Highlights • Decade-long review of >2,950 seabird conference abstracts. • Over 30% of seabird species are rarely or never featured at scientific conferences • Several seabirds listed as Critically Endangered have received little or no attention. • 16 seabird species are over-represented in conferences. • Southern Hemisphere seabirds require greater research attention.
Hey seabird folks - have you ever thought "*ANOTHER* talk about <species X>?!" So did we.
So we reviewed 3000 conference abstracts to see which species get the spotlight. Huge work from @ingridpollet.bsky.social with me and @seabirdsentinel.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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...
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...
🚨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... 🪶🌍
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
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
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
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