Avian movement landscapes in a fragmented sky
SKYSCAPE investigates how birds use the airspace in landscapes increasingly shaped by wind-energy infrastructure, urbanization, and other human pressures. The project combines fieldwork, movement ecology, collision-risk modelling, functional connectivity analysis, and metabolomics to support evidence-based aeroconservation.
Birds do not only depend on forests, wetlands, cliffs, or farmland. They also depend on the airspace above them. Migration, foraging, soaring, dispersal, and daily movement all take place in aerial habitats that are increasingly affected by human infrastructure.
What SKYSCAPE studies
Bird collisions with wind turbines
Fieldwork and existing monitoring data will be used to identify factors linked to collision risk.
Aerial connectivity corridors
Movement and connectivity modelling will map important airspace corridors for migratory birds
Urban bird metabolomics
Blood metabolomic profiles will be compared between urban and rural birds to understand physiological responses to urban environments
