Had a great day at the #BOUasm24 last week! 🐦

#BOUasm24 Chris Pollock @tonyauk.bsky.social uses an Individual-Based Model of seabird foraging to explore how cumulative impacts from #OffshoreWind scale with increasing exposure #OWEC #PrePARED @ukceh.bsky.social

🧵4/6 Last, but by no means least, a big thank you to the Scientific Programme Committee : Aly McCluskie, @katboothjones.bsky.social, Kate Searle, Chris Thaxter

and the #BOUasm24 support team: Ondrej Belfin, Angela Langford, Leila Walker, @natbzielonka.bsky.social

#ornithology

🧵3/6 And a similarly heartfelt thank you to all those who presented in-person, on Zoom, on X and on Bluesky

You can catch up on all their #ornithology presentations via #BOUasm24

🧵2/6 In particular, a big thank you to our #BOUasm24 keynote speakers for their insightful and engaging presentations

@aonghaisc.bsky.social, Michael Heath, Catherine Horswill, Martin Perrow & @eamasden

#ornithology

🧵1/6 That’s it for #BOUasm24

We hope you’ve enjoyed following along!

We’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who’s engaged with and participated in #BOUasm24 today

#ornithology

Christian Schano has just spoken at #BOUasm24 on utility-scale photovoltaic power plants in the Alps

Christian found there is a critical need to comprehensively assess the impact of alpine solar farms on birds and biodiversity

RE-Harrier This project aims to address the impact of wind energy development on the hen harrier, a species of conservation concern in Ireland.

Nicola Largey is at #BOUasm24 talking about the RE:HARRIER project that investigates interactions between windfarms and hen harriers in Ireland. So far, 3272 flight lines, 24 roosts and 33 nest points have been collected.

Follow the project here: info.windenergyirela...

#ornithology

Adam Butler is talking at #BOUasm24 about an expert elicitation on the effectiveness of compensatory measures, focusing on a range of species groups, and considering the differences in adult survival and productivity associated with each measure

#ornithology

At #BOUasm24 Katherine Whyte is trying to understand the mechanisms behind the impacts of offshore wind developments on seabirds

To understand predator-prey interactions, they are collecting GPS tracking data of tagged seabirds and conducting acoustic and trawl surveys of fish

#ornithology

Geometric mean change in breeding bird habitat index in 2050, expressed as percentage change from 2015 for our pessimistic estimate (no breeding birds in areas of new wind or solar installations) Each scenario (baseline and NBS extra) has three nested energy scenarios, none (no new renewables, which also reflects the optimistic estimate for low and high scenarios), and low and high ambition. Dashed line represents 0% change.

Impacts on birds can be minimised by careful siting, and solar farms might be better than the farmland they replace. But even if we pessimistically assume wind and solar farms are *entirely devoid* of bird life, impacts on national populations are likely to be negligible. #BOUasm24 #ornithology

Area of land (million ha) occupied by new onshore solar and wind in 2050 Gray bars represent total opportunity area, with light gray representing the best and most versatile land according to ALC and darker gray representing less productive land. Percentage values in gray text indicate the opportunity area as a percentage of total UK land area. Percentage values in colored text indicate the percentage of the opportunity area occupied.

The renewable transition in the UK requires a relatively small area of land - just 0.9% of land directly impacted, resulting in a probably tiny impact on national food production. #BOUasm24 #ornithology

Joshua Copping is talking at #BOUasm24 about the area of land needed for onshore renewable energy generation, finding that ambitious deployment of onshore wind and solar caused only a minor (<1%) reduction in UK food production

#ornithology

Ambitious onshore renewable energy deployment does not exacerbate future UK land-use challenges Transitioning to renewable energy is crucial for meeting net-zero targets to tackle the climate crisis. Although wind and solar are the main generatio…

Josh is presenting our recent paper (www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...) which explores the capability of UK land to accommodate future onshore renewables, then models the impact of renewables + other land-based climate change mitigation measures on birds 🐦food 🍞 and GHGs 💨 #BOUasm24 #ornithology

Back to the land, with Josh Copping (@rspb.bsky.social). Most of the conference has focused on the energy transition, but net zero is likely to require much wider changes to land management and use. #BOUasm24 #ornithology

Ecosystem modelling is a key took for exploring complex bird, fishing and wind turbine interactions. The SrtathE2E model for the North Sea connects physics, chemistry and biology

Paper: doi.org/10.1111/2041...

Model: rshiny.science.strat...

#BOUasm24 #ornithology

Ilaria Fozzi is talking at #BOUasm24 about the risks of wind turbines for vultures. By using publicly available datasets, they found varied risk to vulture's feeding grounds based on the used map. Mapping planned turbines is crucial for forecasting collision risks.

#ornithology

Griffon vulture

Next, Ilaria Fozzi takes us into the terrestrial realm, and she's got VULTURES. Griffon's are prone to collision with turbines. GPS tags used to identify foraging grounds. Risk of collision depends on turbine dataset used #BOUasm24 #ornithology

We also need to apportion impacts across the flyway during the non-breeding season, which means we need to know where birds from specific colonies migrate to. #BOUasm24 #ornithology

Failing to account for density dependent regulation of population size can lead to unrealistic projections - we should be moving towards a density-dependent framework for PVA #BOUasm24 #ornithology

The three validation models (Models 1 – 3) generated comparable trajectories, although the model incorporating temporal trends in rates of fecundity (Model 3 — yellow) provided a slightly better fit to the data. The projection analysis showed that the population response to an extrinsic threat was considerably greater when the observed temporal trend in rates of fecundity was included (Models 4 and 5).

What happens when we allow demographic variables to trend over time? Even a weak negative trend in fecundity (green projection vs blue projection) has a strong impact on predicted population viability conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #BOUasm24 #ornithology

Temporal change in the contribution of immigration to population growth in a wild seabird experiencing rapid population decline The source–sink paradigm predicts that populations in poorer-quality habitats (‘sinks') persist due to continued immigration from more-productive areas (‘sources'). However, this categorisation of po...

We can also account for immigration to focal populations using Integrated Population Models e.g. here for Skomer Kittiwakes nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #BOUasm24 #ornithology

So, PVA is useful but has poor predictive accuracy. We can impute gaps in colony-specific demographic profiles using life history theory (high fecundity = low survival) - more biologically realistic than assigning average demographic variables across all colonies #BOUasm24 #ornithology

Next Keynote speaker is Cat Horswill @cathorswill.bsky.social. Predicting the impacts of offshore wind on seabird populations using e.g. Population Viability Analysis is hard because we lack population-specific information, so need to make simplifying assumptions #BOUasm24 #ornithology

Projection analysis shows that a density independent model generates unrealistic population dynamics under negative regulation and low estimates of impact under positive regulation. We should move towards density-dependent assessments.

besjournals.onlineli...

#BOUasm24 #ornithology

Simulation models show that incorporating ongoing drivers of change results in faster rates of population decline in response to extrinsic threat and is key to understanding the impact of cumulative anthropogenic pressures

conbio.onlinelibrary...

#seabirds #ornithology #BOUasm24

Catharine Horswill is talking about predicting the impacts of #offshore infrastructure on #seabirds and how we can use reconstruction approaches to reduce uncertainties in the impact assessments

Example case studies and code: besjournals.onlineli...

#ornithology #BOUasm24

Silvia Giuntini at #BOUasm24 talked about the aerial migratory niche. By analysing 108 million radar observations from 143 NEXRAD sites, she identified peak activity hours & locations. This can inform when offshore energy could be switched off to protect birds when they're most active

#ornithology

This is brilliant! BOU / @ibisjournal.bsky.social have long been known for conferencing on Twitter, so it’s great that they now lead on this here with the first crossposting of content from of one of their #ornithology events here on Bluesky. Follow/engage on the #BOUasm24 tag.

Coffee time ☕! The Zoom experience has been perfect so far 💯 #BOUasm24 #ornithology