New paper on LEV

In a new paper by Tatjana Hubel and Ca Tropea published in J Exp Biol, the occurence of LEV in model wings is investigated. The wings are large, goose size, and the kinematics resemble that of a large bird as well. Still, these wings develop LEVs associated with a delayed stall. These results suggest that even relatively simple kinematics of forward flight in largish birds are potent in developing non-ignorable LEVs associated with unsteady aerodynamic effects. The authors also raise the question whether the quasi-steady approach to bird flight, as adopted in the most popular flight models, perhaps now should be reconsider. I anticipate we will need to discuss this in the near future.

New Lab Publication

It was recently demonstrated that shorebirds (godwits) fly non-stop between Alaska and New Zealand on their autumn migration - a flight that takes more than a week! Do we need to revise our current flight models as a result of these observations? How did such long flights evolve? These, and other questions are discussed in an "unsolved mystery" piece in the May issue of PLoS Biology: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000362

New lab publication

Two members of the AFL and their co-authors have written a paper titled, 'Grand Challenges in Migration Biology', which was published online in the journal Integrative and Comparative Biology today. The paper grew out of the symposium on Integrative Migration Biology that A.H. and M.S.B. attended in January.

The paper can be found on the 'advance access' portion of ICB's website, here: http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/icq013 .

DelFly makes it into the Lund Wind Tunnel

On Friday 9 April, last week, the dutch MAV experts B. W. van Oudheusden and Bart Remes from the TU Delft visited Lund and the Animal Flight Lab. The reason for their visit was discussion about Melanie Stuiver's MAV design. The dutch lab develops some famous MAVs, such as the DelFly, which is inspired by insect flyers such as dragonflies (and uses a clap-and-fling mechanism), and the Roboswift, which is inspired by the morphing wings of real swifts. As a proof of concept the DelFly was tested in the wind tunnel, with medium success. It turned out to be somewhat hard to control it's flight in the tunnel, but after some practice pilot Bart Remes could keep the fly stationary in the test section at a speed about 2 m/s.

Rhea gets FAZIT stipend

AFL member Rhea von Busse has received a FAZIT stipend, which is a foundation of the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), which is one of the biggest, reputable German newspapers. They are mainly known to support Journalists in their career but they also support scientific research by giving stipends to doctoral and postdoctoral candidates. Rhea says "I didn’t even know that they provide PhD stipends, but one of the grant counselors at my University told me to apply there and don’t feel discouraged by their guidelines, which mostly address Journalists.". Rhea has collected all of her data to finnish her PhD thesis, and now "only" has to analyze those and write up some manuscript.

Congratulations to Rhea!

Bat ecology on SVT Play

Yesterday, monday 15 March, SVT sent a nature film following a group of Germans and US scientists working with bats on Barro Colorado, Panama. This rater small island holds 72 species of bats and one main question addressed by these biologists is: how can they co-exist in such a small area. The answer is multi-faceted, including roost sites, food type and flight/foraging altitude. We can see the biologists catching bats, filming them in infrared, recording their sounds and making experiments. Even if the film is narrated in Swedish (could be a good practice for those who are still learning swedish), the scientists themselves speak in english. I liked the film and strongly recommend it to everybody in AFL. It can bee seen at

http://svtplay.se/v/1926696/naturfilm/fladdermossens_paradis

Rabies in Swedish bats

Bats can get infected about a form of rabies (Lyssa virus), which rarely also can be transferred to other mammals, including Homo sapiens. Out of four fatal cases in Europe during the last few decades two have been bat researchers, so there is a small risk of handling wild bats in Europe. However, Sweden has thus far been without any reported cases of rabid bats. But new samples taken during 2009 in Skåne found antibodies against bat rabies in eight Daubenton's bats (Myotis daubentoni), according to a press release yesterday. These bats are non-migratory (at least we think so), and therefore they should have been in contact with actually sick bats at some stage. Hence, Sweden is no longer a rabies-free territory. But this is a fully expected result considering that rabies is found in our neighboring countries Denmark and Finland, and is common in Germany and Poland. Since many bats migrate to continental Europe it would have been strange if infected bats never turned up in Sweden. This new finding does not change any of the official recommendations for us working with bats, which include being vaccinated and wearing a glove when handling (such as ringing) bats. More information can be found at www.naturvardsverket.se/fladdermus .