Scopoli’s Shearwaters as ecological indicators in the western Mediterranean: a post-doctorate opportunity comes up in France

David Grémillet and Aurélien Besnard (Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, Montpellier, France) are looking for a one- or two-year post-doctoral student to verify and establish the status of Scopoli’s Shearwaters Calonectris diomedea as ecological indicators in the western Mediterranean.

“Multi-year, multicolony GPS-tracking showed that shearwaters (Scopoli and Yelkouan) extensively use coastal areas along the French Mediterranean coast, and the Gulf of Lion area.  Further, the Parc National des Calanques off Marseille has been performing >20 year monitoring of the vital rates of Scopoli’s shearwaters breeding on the Island of Riou, on the basis of >200 individually-marked breeding adults. Both GPS-tracking and population monitoring show that shearwaters are, for a series of ecological and practical reasons, serious candidates as ecological indicators.”

“The Post Doc will explore two sets of state variables, and their functional links with environmental parameters:

1) The reproductive performance and annual survival rates of adult shearwaters, as determined through a >20 year mark-recapture study of individually-marked birds, will be confronted with environmental conditions, both at their Mediterranean breeding site and across their non-breeding migratory areas in the Atlantic.

2) The at-sea home-range and foraging effort of birds are also tightly linked to marine resources, and the ecological state of the western Mediterranean during the breeding season.”

Scopoli’s Shearwater, photograph by Pep Arcos

Send CV and motivation letter to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 1 September 2015.

Read more here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 31 July 2015