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Fine-scale flight strategies of gulls in urban airflows indicate risk and reward in city living

Emily Shepard Orcid Logo, Cara Williamson, Shane P. Windsor

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Volume: 371, Issue: 1704, Start page: 20150394

Swansea University Author: Emily Shepard Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1098/rstb.2015.0394

Abstract

Birds modulate their flight paths in relation to regional and global airflows in order to reduce their travel costs. Birds should also respond to fine-scale airflows, although the incidence and value of this remains largely unknown. We resolved the 3-dimensional trajectories of gulls flying along a...

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Published in: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
ISSN: 1471-2970
Published: 2016
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa28419
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first_indexed 2016-06-02T13:04:13Z
last_indexed 2020-11-28T03:40:55Z
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spelling 2020-11-27T13:27:24.3753776 v2 28419 2016-06-02 Fine-scale flight strategies of gulls in urban airflows indicate risk and reward in city living 54729295145aa1ea56d176818d51ed6a 0000-0001-7325-6398 Emily Shepard Emily Shepard true false 2016-06-02 SBI Birds modulate their flight paths in relation to regional and global airflows in order to reduce their travel costs. Birds should also respond to fine-scale airflows, although the incidence and value of this remains largely unknown. We resolved the 3-dimensional trajectories of gulls flying along a built up coastline, and used computation fluid dynamic models to examine how gulls reacted to airflows around buildings. Birds systematically altered their flight trajectories with wind conditions to exploit updraughts over features as small as a row of low-rise buildings. This provides the first evidence that human activities can change patterns of space-use in flying birds by altering the profitability of the airscape. At finer scales still, gulls varied their position to select a narrow range of updraught values, rather than exploiting the strongest updraughts available, and their precise positions were consistent with a strategy to increase their velocity control in gusty conditions. Ultimately, strategies such as these could help unmanned aerial vehicles negotiate complex airflows. Overall, airflows around fine-scale features have profound implications for flight control and energy use, and consideration of this could lead to a paradigm-shift in the way ecologists view the urban environment. Journal Article Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 371 1704 20150394 1471-2970 urbanisation, energy landscape, flight, soaring, UAV, gull 26 9 2016 2016-09-26 10.1098/rstb.2015.0394 COLLEGE NANME Biosciences COLLEGE CODE SBI Swansea University 2020-11-27T13:27:24.3753776 2016-06-02T12:53:16.1871298 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences Emily Shepard 0000-0001-7325-6398 1 Cara Williamson 2 Shane P. Windsor 3 28419__17737__43479c3dbf6a497083b02c12b76fd06d.pdf rstb.2015.0394.pdf 2020-07-20T10:58:29.4500623 Output 639598 application/pdf Version of Record true (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ true
title Fine-scale flight strategies of gulls in urban airflows indicate risk and reward in city living
spellingShingle Fine-scale flight strategies of gulls in urban airflows indicate risk and reward in city living
Emily Shepard
title_short Fine-scale flight strategies of gulls in urban airflows indicate risk and reward in city living
title_full Fine-scale flight strategies of gulls in urban airflows indicate risk and reward in city living
title_fullStr Fine-scale flight strategies of gulls in urban airflows indicate risk and reward in city living
title_full_unstemmed Fine-scale flight strategies of gulls in urban airflows indicate risk and reward in city living
title_sort Fine-scale flight strategies of gulls in urban airflows indicate risk and reward in city living
author_id_str_mv 54729295145aa1ea56d176818d51ed6a
author_id_fullname_str_mv 54729295145aa1ea56d176818d51ed6a_***_Emily Shepard
author Emily Shepard
author2 Emily Shepard
Cara Williamson
Shane P. Windsor
format Journal article
container_title Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
container_volume 371
container_issue 1704
container_start_page 20150394
publishDate 2016
institution Swansea University
issn 1471-2970
doi_str_mv 10.1098/rstb.2015.0394
college_str Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchytype
hierarchy_top_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
department_str School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences
document_store_str 1
active_str 0
description Birds modulate their flight paths in relation to regional and global airflows in order to reduce their travel costs. Birds should also respond to fine-scale airflows, although the incidence and value of this remains largely unknown. We resolved the 3-dimensional trajectories of gulls flying along a built up coastline, and used computation fluid dynamic models to examine how gulls reacted to airflows around buildings. Birds systematically altered their flight trajectories with wind conditions to exploit updraughts over features as small as a row of low-rise buildings. This provides the first evidence that human activities can change patterns of space-use in flying birds by altering the profitability of the airscape. At finer scales still, gulls varied their position to select a narrow range of updraught values, rather than exploiting the strongest updraughts available, and their precise positions were consistent with a strategy to increase their velocity control in gusty conditions. Ultimately, strategies such as these could help unmanned aerial vehicles negotiate complex airflows. Overall, airflows around fine-scale features have profound implications for flight control and energy use, and consideration of this could lead to a paradigm-shift in the way ecologists view the urban environment.
published_date 2016-09-26T03:34:33Z
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score 11.012678

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