As per the tradition of Thorne Lab, we heartily celebrated Ian Maywar who has just defended his master’s thesis, “Differential impacts of wind and waves on albatrosses in two ocean basins” at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, with some champagne!
For his thesis work, Ian modeled GPS (movement), and accelerometer (activity/flap rate) data for five albatross species during their breeding season; two in the North Pacific (Black-footed, and Laysan) and three in the Southern Ocean (Black-browed, Grey-headed, and Wandering). He wanted to understand the influence of wind and wave conditions on the flap rate of these birds and determine under what conditions they soared (ie. didn’t flap).
He found that species in the two different basins use different strategies depending on prevailing conditions. Southern Ocean species soar using wind energy while North Pacific species use wave energy. According to Ian, ”…this is an exciting new discovery and it raises questions about why and how this difference exists”.
Like the albatrosses, who like to climb the air using winds or waves (as they soar), Ian likes to climb rocks, so he got a rock climbing-themed cake with photo-shopped albatrosses in the background.
We will miss Ian, but we are excited to see him soar on to great things!