Pollutions from urban, industrial, and agricultural activities put ecological health at risk due to contamination and accumulation in wildlife and humans. Widespread effect of pollution, such as air and noise pollution, on animals have long been documented including its detrimental effect on physiology, reproduction and development. Growing evidences have shown that particulate matter, NOx and noise pollution are associated with impaired fetal development and adverse birth outcomes in human. Furthermore, it was shown in an experiment in zebra finches that the traffic noise can impair embryonic development leading to embryonic death. However, we know that anthropogenic pollution can trigger developmental failure, we do not know if it affects the natural populations or not.
Aim of the study: Investigate the effect of anthropogenic pollution on hatching failure rate and the cause of hatching failure (embryo death, fertilisation failure etc…) in Great and Blue tits (Parus major & Cyanistes caeruleus).
Questions: Does anthropogenic pollution (noise, particulate matter and NOx) influence hatching failure in natural populations?
Your tasks:
- Collect basic breeding data in 2025, following the individual breeding attempt, ringing nestlings and adults, collecting unhatched eggs.
- Organise the data for your analysis for 3 years (2023-2025)
- Collect the noise pollution data for each nestbox based on the measurements of Naturvårdsverket. You will use QGIS for this.
- Carry out the statistical analysis.
- Write your thesis.
You will learn to:
- handle and measure birds
- basic principles of databases and using different statistical tools to analyse your data
- use GIS for analysing spatial data
Starting date: 1st of April (but sooner is the better). Duration: 45-60 kredits
Main supervisor: Caroline Isaksson – caroline.isaksson@biol.lu.se
Co-supervisor: Zsófia Tóth – zsofia.toth@biol.lu.se