Light is a powerful cue that guides and controls much of life on earth. Sunlight also follows a predictable and steady schedule, at least most of the time. So, what happens when it suddenly doesn’t? In 2017 we used large-scale weather radar data to investigate how animals in the air reacted to the 2017 US total solar eclipse. Across 143 radar sites we measured drops in animal activity in the air as the eclipse passed, probably mainly due to flying birds landing. At sites in the path of totality we saw a slightly different reaction, with some bursts of activity, possibly related to insect activity.
In 2024 another total eclipse occurred across the US. This eclipse had a different path, meaning different radar sites experienced totality, and it also occurred in a different season, spring rather than autumn. We now have the data for the 2024 eclipse and are looking for a motivated student to compare animal activity in the air between the two eclipses.
See more: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0485
Required knowledge: Comfortable with, or willing to learn, to analyse data in R.
Length of the project: MSc, flexible depending on depth of analysis
Start date: Flexible
Contact info: Cecilia Nilsson, Cecilia.nilsson@biol.lu.se
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