MSc Thesis: Habitat use and selection in migratory waders
University of Amsterdam · Nov 2024 – July 2025
Intra- and interspecific variation in habitat use and selection throughout the annual cycle among migratory waders, supervised by Dr. Joao R. Belo, Dr. José A. Alves & Ass. Prof. Eldar Rakhimberdiev.
- Analysed large year-round GPS-tracking datasets of Common Redshank, Grey Plover, and Black-tailed Godwit along the East-Atlantic Flyway.
- Integrated land cover data and applied state-of-the-art resource selection functions in R to quantify habitat use and selection across the annual cycle.
- Developed a reproducible methodological framework for year-round habitat selection analysis to identify population-specific critical habitats.
- Field work: catching, handling, and ringing of various wader species in intertidal flats, lagoons, and rice fields.
Literature Review: Tracking animal behaviour as a sentinel of environmental change
University of Amsterdam · Aug 2024 – Oct 2024
Interdisciplinary review of how telemetry-derived animal behavioural and activity patterns can be used as a monitoring tool for animal and ecosystem health, supervised by Dr. Julia Karagicheva, Ass. Prof. Eldar Rakhimberdiev & Prof. Judy Shamoun-Baranes.
- Collected and assessed interdisciplinary literature on movement ecology, including animal tracking data, eco-toxicology, human movement, medicine, and indicators of resilience and entropy.
- Developed a toolbox outlining theoretical and applied approaches for using telemetry-derived behavioural and activity patterns as indicators of animal and ecosystem health.
- Findings contributed to a manuscript currently in review (Rakhimberdiev et al., in review).
MSc Thesis: Breeding propensity in Bewick's Swans
University of Amsterdam · Nov 2023 – July 2024
Low breeding propensity in a declining Arctic-breeding swan revealed by telemetry data, supervised by Dr. Hans Linssen, Prof. Bart Nolet & Prof. Judy Shamoun-Baranes.
- Developed a computational framework in R to identify nesting attempts from movement patterns of Bewick's Swans using large GPS-tracking and accelerometer datasets.
- Quantified key reproductive parameters and assessed potential energetic and environmental constraints by integrating climate data.
- Integrated telemetry data with citizen-science field observations to extract additional reproductive parameters.
BSc Research Project: Personality and migration timing in Red Knots
Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) · Apr 2023 – May 2023
Modelling animal behaviour experiments with radio-tracking data to study interactive effects of personality traits and food availability on migration timing of Red Knots, supervised by Ass. Prof. Thomas K. Lameris.
- Contextualised how personality traits may affect the ability of Red Knots to adapt to global change through differences in foraging tactics and migration timing.
- Field work: handling and measuring waders in captivity.