Symposium number: 40

Title: BEHAVIOUR AND PHYSIOLOGY OF UNDER-WATER FORAGING IN DIVING BIRDS

Principal organizer: Patrick Butler
University of Birmingham, School of Biosciences, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom
email: p.j.butler@bham.ac.uk

Second organizer: Akiko Kato
National Institute of Polar Research, Itabashi, 173 8515 Tokyo, Japan

First keynote speaker: Sarah Wanless
CEH Banchory, Banchory, Kincardineshire AB31 4BY, United Kingdom
Title of first keynote paper: Behavioural adaptations and constraints on avian diving - a northern hemisphere perspective

Second keynote speaker: Rory Wilson
Institute of Environmental Sustainability, School of the Environment and Society, University of Wales Swansea, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP, Wales, UK
Title of second keynote paper: Beyond Dewar: Towards an integrated approach to understand diving in birds

Contributed talks

Symposium description: The foraging behaviour of diving water birds may be constrained by capacity to manage limited stores of oxygen optimally. So a major objective of this symposium will be to review recent advances in the behaviour and physiology of aquatic birds, integrating this knowledge into clearer insights into how different species are able to forage at the diverse depths for the diverse durations that they do. The two keynote speakers, international experts in their fields, will focus respectively on behaviour (Sarah Wanless) and physiology (Yves Handrich), yet will co-ordinate their presentations to provide a general overview of the extent to which physiology may limit foraging behaviour in aquatic birds. The coverage will include (1) the role of sensory systems in prey location, particularly vision; (2) the quality and density of the prey species; (3) behavioural and physiological adaptations for conserving oxygen during dives, e.g. changing buoyancy, limiting the delivery of oxygenated blood to certain parts of the body, adjusting regional hypothermia; (4) problems of diving in very cold water; and (5) how penguins, in particular, have the capacity to dive to great depths.

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