Internship Movement ecology of migratory shorebirds in the Dutch Wadden Sea

The Wadden Sea is a UNESCO world heritage site and important for many migratory shorebirds. The aim of the overarching project is understanding the movement and spatial distribution of shorebirds such as red knots, bar-tailed godwits, curlew, and dunlin. Example questions are how do shorebirds move with the tide? How does the distribution of resources affects spatial distributions of different species? On which intertidal mudflats do they feed, and with whom? Do individuals differ consistently in where they go?

We track shorebirds with the novel high-resolution tracking system WATLAS, measure individual characteristics before they are tagged and released, sample resource availability (shellfish, worms, etc), and quantify their diet from droppings and isotope signals in their blood. There are student projects available on these topics or combinations thereof, and depending on your own research ideas and interests, we can think of additional projects.

Student tasks may include field work on the uninhabited island of Griend, catching shorebirds, conducting personality assays, sampling bivalves on mudflats, ring-reading, sailing with the NIOZ research vessels, analyses with R.

We are looking for students with experience working with movement data, preferably for a period of 6 months or longer. Candidates with strong R skills are also welcome to apply for a shorter period.

If you are interested and would like to find out more about this project, please contact Dr. Allert Bijleveld and include the following in your e-mail:

• The time period you are available and the intended length of the internship
• Your motivation for applying and what you hope to learn during this internship
• A description of your R skills, ideally with examples of relevant projects or types of analysis you have worked on
• A CV (1–2 pages) as a PDF