Puffins to be fitted with 'sat nav' to monitor decline

July 1, 2009

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at Newcastle University are using GPS technology in an effort to understand a worrying decline in the numbers of Puffins.
In the last five years the numbers of the sea birds has plummeted around Britain.

On the Isle of May in the North Sea, the largest breeding colony in Britain, numbers fell from 70,000 in 2003 to 41,000 in 2008.

On the Farne Islands, off the Northumberland coast, numbers also dropped by around a third, from 56,000 to 36,000, during the same period.

In an effort to find out the reason, scientists from Newcastle University are working with National Trust wardens on Brownsman Island on the Farnes to tag and ring puffins.

The tags, which are glued on to the feathers and fall off after several days, will help to map their movements to find out where they are going to fish, how they are getting there and what they are doing once they are there.

The team will then collect the tags a few days later and download the data. The information should provide clues to the kind of feeding grounds the birds have been to and therefore the threats they are exposed to.

Dr Richard Bevan, of Newcastle University where the data will be processed, said scientists will be able to work out why puffins are dying from seeing where the birds go in the winter.

"Technological developments now mean that we're getting closer to finding the pieces of the jigsaw to help solve the puffin puzzle. The new data will help explain what the puffins are doing when they're on the Farne Islands and hopefully then help us to understand why numbers have declined so dramatically," he said.

"The tags are very much like the 'Tom-Tom' devices you have in the car. All it does is store the back-data and then retrieve the tag and download the data."

David Steel, National Trust Head Warden on the Farne Islands, said puffins are breeding successfully so it was essential to find out what could be causing the death of the birds out at sea.

"This has become the case of the disappearing puffins," he said. "Young puffins are successfully fledging each year and it would seem that their staple food, the sand eel is in good supply, but they're just not coming back to the islands. This research, including further counts, is designed to shed some light on what is happening."

Further work will be carried out using time-depth recorders on the Farne Island puffins. These devices provide information on diving behaviour, such as how often they dive and how deep, and sea temperatures. This information will help in understanding how puffins might be affected by climate change and possible changes in sea temperatures.

Provided by Newcastle University (news : web)


Rank 3 /5 (2 votes)
Related Stories
Relevant PhysicsForums posts
  • Looking for website on Molecular Neuroscience
    created46 minutes ago
  • Factors affecting beet root cell membrane
    createdFeb 12, 2012
  • Stem cell question.
    createdFeb 10, 2012
  • Protease cleavage
    createdFeb 10, 2012
  • Pertubance in a model
    createdFeb 10, 2012
  • Cancer drugs and Alzheimer's, Oh my!
    createdFeb 09, 2012
  • More from Physics Forums - Biology

More news stories

Plants use circadian rhythms to prepare for battle with insects

In a study of the molecular underpinnings of plants' pest resistance, Rice University biologists have shown that plants both anticipate daytime raids by hungry insects and make sophisticated preparations to ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created 2 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study finds fish of Antarctica threatened by climate change

A Yale-led study of the evolutionary history of Antarctic fish and their "anti-freeze" proteins illustrates how tens of millions of years ago a lineage of fish adapted to newly formed polar conditions – ...

Biology / Ecology

created 4 hours ago | popularity 3.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Explosive evolution need not follow mass extinctions, says study of ancient zooplankton

Following one of Earth's five greatest mass extinctions, tiny marine organisms called graptoloids did not begin to rapidly develop new physical traits until about 2 million years after competing species became ...

Biology / Evolution

created 4 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Writing a new code for life?

On "Star Trek, the aliens often look so human that crew members fall in love with them. But in real life, scientists in the field known as astrobiology can't be sure alien life would even be carbon-based like us, or use DNA ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created 7 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 1

Lens produces hours of scientific work in seconds

A new form of microscope which can produce results in seconds rather than hours – dramatically speeding up the process of drug development - is being developed by researchers at the University of Strathclyde ...

Biology / Other

created 8 hours ago | popularity 4.4 / 5 (7) | comments 1 | with audio podcast


First-of-its-kind stem cell study re-grows healthy heart muscle in heart attack patients

Results from a Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute clinical trial show that treating heart attack patients with an infusion of their own heart-derived cells helps damaged hearts re-grow healthy muscle.

Discovery paves way for salmonella vaccine

(Medical Xpress) -- An international research team led by a University of California, Davis, immunologist has taken an important step toward an effective vaccine against salmonella, a group of increasingly antibiotic-resistant ...

Time of year important in projections of climate change effects on ecosystems

(PhysOrg.com) -- Does it matter whether long periods of hot weather, such as last year's heat wave that gripped the U.S. Midwest, happen in June or July, August or September?

Smoking bans lead to less, not more, smoking at home: study

Smoking bans in public/workplaces don't drive smokers to light up more at home, suggests a study of four European countries with smoke free legislation, published online in Tobacco Control.

Ovarian cancer arises in fallopian tube of knockout mice

(Medical Xpress) -- The most deadly form of "ovarian" cancer arises in the fallopian tubes – not the ovaries – of knockout mice that lack two genes associated with the disease, said researchers led by Baylor College ...

UK cases of progressive sight loss condition set to rise a third by 2020

New cases of the progressive sight loss condition, known as age-related macular degeneration, or AMD for short, are set to rise by a third in the UK over the next decade, reveals research published online in the British Jo ...