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THANK YOU!!

As the year-end approaches, we would like to thank all the donors who have responded to our efforts to raise $3 million to fund critical research. Your contributions to the Center for Ecosystem Sentinel Research Fund will support our travel to Punta Tombo, all of the equipment and tags we use at Punta Tombo, and allow us to continue our […]

News

2025 Research Roundup

We’ve published a lot this year! Here’s a round up of what we wrote in 2025:

Publications

Leveraging machine learning and accelerometry to classify animal behaviors with uncertainty

Animal-worn sensors, especially accelerometers, are increasingly used with machine-learning models to identify animal behaviors. These tools often struggle with uneven training data, uncertain predictions, and noisy results. To address these issues, Dr. Rafiq and Dr. Abrahms, with their collaborators, developed an open-source method that combines machine learning and statistical techniques to improve behavior classification and to provide “prediction sets,” which

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Abrahms Lab, Boersma Lab, Updates from the Field

Field updates: Argentina, October-November 2025

Written by Dr. Eric Wagner Starting the season – stake survey and tag hunting In late October, Dr. Eric Wagner and Abrahms graduate student Meredith Honig traveled to Argentina to start the 2025-2026 field season. After getting a provisional permit from the provincial authorities, they arrived at Punta Tombo on October 29. They then spent the next two days completing

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Boersma Lab, News

Expedition Cruise to Baffin Island: September 1-18, 2026

Join Dr. Dee Boersma, Dr. Sue Moore, and Dr. Nigella Hillgarth on a cruise to Baffin Island! This will be an expedition from Greenland to the Canadian Arctic and into the Northwest Passages, from September 1 – 18, 2026. Sail in the same waters as Roald Amundsen and his crew of six during their 1903-06 successful navigation of the Northwest

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Loggerhead turtles killed as result of shrimp bycatch prior to introduction ofturtle excluder devices.Publications

Vulnerability of marine megafauna to global at-sea anthropogenic threats

Marine megafauna face many human-caused threats, so understanding how vulnerable each species is to these dangers is essential. In this study, researchers assessed how 256 large marine species respond to 23 different threats, ranging from specific fishing gear to climate impacts and coastal disturbances. They found that 70 species had high vulnerability (v > 0.778 out of 1) to at

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A mother gray whale and calf spy-hopping.Publications

What gray whales are telling us about ecosystem change in the Pacific Arctic

Gray whales in the eastern North Pacific have been shrinking in number for the past six years — and the decline seems to be getting worse. This is surprising because gray whales had made a big comeback after being hunted almost to extinction. But now, warming oceans are changing their Arctic feeding areas. Less sea ice and shifts in ocean

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Abrahms Lab, Updates from the Field

Field updates: Botswana, August-October 2025

Written by Dr. Kasim Rafiq and graduate student Marie-Pier Poulin of the Abrahms LabAll research and photographs are done in compliance with IACUC-approved protocols, and have been permitted through the appropriate permits. Over the past few months, we have been busy collecting data on African carnivores at Dog Camp, the Botswana-based bush camp of our long-term collaborators Wild Entrust’s Botswana

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Boersma Lab, News

Dr. Sue Moore and Dr. Jennifer Tennessen attend One Ocean Week Seattle

Dr. Sue Moore and Dr. Jennifer Tennessen attended One Ocean Week Seattle. This event is a region-wide, international gathering of ocean leaders, innovators, researchers, startups, policymakers, artists, educators, and communities to accelerate solutions for a sustainable, inclusive maritime future. Dr. Moore was a panelist on the “Coast to Coast Collaboration in Research” session held onboard the Statsraad Lehmkuh Tallship.  She

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Boersma Lab

Dr. Dee Boersma signs AAAS’s Book of Members

On October 11, 2025 Dr. Dee Boersma finally signed the AAAS’s Book of Members during the 2025 induction ceremony. Congratulations Dee! Dee was officially inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021. Dee couldn’t make the 2021 induction ceremony due to COVID, and field work trips kept her from attending a ceremony after 2021.

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An African wild dog looks towards the camera through green leaves.Publications

Wild canids and felids differ in their reliance on reused travel routeways

Dr. Briana Abrahms and Dr. Kasim Rafiq, along with many collaborators, published this study in PNAS earlier this fall. Animals move through their environments in many different ways, and these movement patterns affect things like hunting, finding mates, and spreading diseases. This study looked at GPS data from over 1,200 wild carnivores—16 canid (dog-like) and 18 felid (cat-like) species from

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A wet Magellanic chick stands in a flooded burrow.Publications

Interacting climatic and biotic drivers of population responses to climate change

Full title: Comparative life-cycle analyses reveal interacting climatic and biotic drivers of population responses to climate change Dr. Briana Abrahms and Dr. Dee Boersma collaborated on this study, published in PNAS Nexus in September. The study looked at long-term data from 41 plant and animal species to understand how climate change and other factors together affect survival and reproduction. The

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Two people on a blow-up boat look at a Galapagos penguin that is standing on the edge of the boat.Boersma Lab, Updates from the Field

Field Updates: Galápagos, Summer 2025

Dr. Dee Boersma, Dr. Sue Moore, and Dr. Caroline Cappello were in the Galápagos from July 25 – August 3 to survey the penguins on the islands. They were able to measure 36 of them—16 more than last year! Measuring penguins is an essential part of our project, which is maintaining continuity with our decades-long dataset on the species. Dr. Boersma began studying

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Abrahms Lab, Updates from the Field

Field updates: Botswana, June – July 2025

Post written by Marie-Pier Poulin Graduate student Marie-Pier Poulin scans for animal tracking collars in the Okavango Delta. Photo credit: Leigh West In mid-June, PhD candidate Leigh West, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Kasim Rafiq, and graduate student Marie-Pier Poulin arrived at Dog Camp, the Botswana-based bush camp of our long-term collaborators Wild Entrust’s Botswana Predator Conservation. Over the past month, we

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