Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research

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Birds

Throughout the year, the Wadden Sea is populated by birds. Seabirds only come on land to breed on the Wadden Islands. There are also shorebirds that stayover in the Wadden Sea while traveling between the tropics and the Artic. They use the mudflats to fuel their long-distance flights. Both species are monitored.

Phenological mismatch

Phenological mismatch

Project | How an insectivorous migrant shorebird may mitigate the negative effects of a warming Arctic by prey and patch selection.

Arctic warming and migrants

Arctic warming and migrants

VICI project | An in-depth investigation of warming-induced phenotypic changes and their lifelong impact in both the Arctic and the tropics.

WATLAS - shorebird tracking

WATLAS - shorebird tracking

Project | With WATLAS (Wadden Sea Advanced Tracking and Localisation of Animals in real life Systems) we follow where Red Knots go in the Wadden Sea.

Eurasian spoonbill migration

Eurasian spoonbill migration

VENI project | How do they find their way, what do they know, what do they learn, and how does this affect their ability to cope with ecological change?

Effects of MSC Zoe plastics

Effects of MSC Zoe plastics

Project | Research to be carried out into the possible consequences of the container disaster on the ecosystem of the North Sea and Wadden Sea.

Research on breeding colonies

Research on breeding colonies

Program | Combining long-term demographic with life-time tracking of Eurasian spoonbills from the breeding colonies in The Netherlands.

Ontogeny of migration

Ontogeny of migration

Project | Genetic and learned components in migratory routines, capitalising on the natural difference in global distribution between two subspecies.

Learning to lead

Learning to lead

Project | How among-individual differences structure animal groups, affect the flow of information, and determine leadership roles.

Body shrinkage

Project | Climate change is affecting life on Earth in various ways. Body shrinkage is already considered a universal response to global warming.

Impact of migrant predators

Impact of migrant predators

Project | In the current biodiversity decline, predators are often the first to disappear. Predators are thought to play a positive role in biodiversity.

Conservation of the dynamics

Conservation of the dynamics

Project | To investigate the effects of the recovery project, an intensive four-year research project has started that will run until 2020.

Effects of oil polution

Effects of oil polution

Project | Since 1997 each winter coastal areas has been monitored on the occurrence of oil pollution in seabirds by NIOZ and the Dutch Seabird Group.

Diet of Gulls

Project | Even if a species is known as a generalist, this does not necessarily entail that all individuals of that species have the same diet.

Predator-prey effects

Predator-prey effects

Project | The intertidal ecosystem of Barr Al Hikman in the Sultanate of Oman is one of the last large pristine wetlands in the Middle-East.

Flyway ecology

Info | A portfolio of long-term demographic and migration studies on long-distance migrating shorebirds.