Marta Lomas VegaPostdoctor
About me
My main research interests are within behavioural and evolutionary ecology and climate change. I study long-term adaptations to the environment as well as flexibility of behaviour when facing environmental changes, using birds as model species. During my PhD at the University of Copenhagen, I tracked bird movement at global and local scales to investigate patterns in relation to the inherited migration programme and to environmental pressures and the underlying mechanisms of these. To understand the innate part of the migration programme, I used a brood-parasitic species, the common cuckoo, which juvenile birds never get to meet their parents and migrate solitarily at night. By satellite tracking the migration of these juvenile birds, I could thus study the innate component of the migration programme and compare it to that of experienced adults. This research indicated that the innate programme allows birds to perform more directed migration oriented to a goal area, even compensating for external pressures such as side winds, while adults use external cues more efficiently. Later on we found a potential for young cuckoos to reach the species-specific migration route after experimental displacement showing, altogether, that the inherited migration programme in common cuckoos is more sophisticated than previously thought.
I further investigated how migrating birds track peaks of food resources during migration and breeding as well as the potential effect of climate change on the migration routes. I also studied bird migration strategies to cross ecological barriers such as the Sahara desert, and how migration routes can contribute to genetic population structure.
Previous work included staging behaviour of a long-distance migrating wader, the ruff, facing land use changes over a period of ten years in The Netherlands, at University of Groningen. I have also been involved in different research projects on breeding and migration ecology of North American birds at University of Montana, University of Utah, Klamath Bird Observatory and Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. During my master’s degree at Doñana Biological Station, Spain, I studied morphological differences in two alpine songbird species and their associations with geographical and climate variables to investigate the influence of climate change on birds breeding at a high elevation ecosystem.
Research
Long-term effects of climate change on Swedish bird populations
In my current research, I study the impact of recent climate change on the breeding phenology and reproductive success of Sweden's breeding birds. The aim is to uncover the extent to which the breeding ecology of Sweden's birds has changed over the past four decades and to uncover the environmental mechanisms that have led to these changes accounting with the geographical variation of climate change. For this, I use thousands of nest reports of different bird species and environmental variables collected across Sweden, that give information on vegetation greenness and weather changes over time. In another part of this project we look into shifts of wintering areas and the potential relation with climate and phenology changes.
This project is funded by the RA8 of the Bolin Centre in collaboration with Cecilia Kullberg at the Department of Zoology, and Thord Fransson at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.