Kari Koivula
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koivulakari.bsky.social
Kari Koivula
@koivulakari.bsky.social
Ecologist, ornithologist, naturalist. Boreal forests, Baltic Sea & shorebirds. PhD, University Lecturer @unioulu.bsky.social Finland. Football @chelsea-fc.bsky.social
Reposted by Kari Koivula
Interesting talk by @jellybb.bsky.social about the aberrant egg coloration in Ruff clutches. Blue eggs may affect nest survival, but fitness effects may be habitat dependent. @waderstudy.bsky.social IWSG Conference 2025 in Groningen (Netherlands) #IWSG2025 #waders #shorebirds
September 28, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
5/5 In addition, a huge effort is made to protect the #critically #endangered southern #dunlin. With expertise of Vroni Rohr-Bender and others, 26 chicks got an advantage be growing up in our aviary, before they got released back in the meadows, hopefully successfully #boosting the #population.
July 6, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
1/5 - What.an.increadible.fieldseason! Together with @koivulakari.bsky.social , @jelenasubotic.bsky.social , @chorlnev.bsky.social , @vmpakanen.bsky.social, Kristzi Kupan, Vroni Rohr-Bender and others we managed to find plenty of ruff nests (65!) and headstarted a bunch of Southern Dunlins (26!).
July 6, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
Time is up for my brief fieldwork stint at #Liminganlahti. I have to leave right at the hatching peak of the #ruffs but the work is left in the capable hands of a wonderful team.
June 16, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Southern dunlin, endangered living dinosaur. #theropods, #ornithology, #waders
June 7, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Ruff lekking: The co-display of a pale satellite and a court-defending independent morph increases male attractiveness. Lekking began here (65°N) in the first week of May and continues, even though most females are already incubating and the first chicks are expected to hatch any day now.
June 7, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
This year we spent long (and cold) nights out to capture #ruffs during peak #lekking. Each one ringed and fitted with a transmitter to help us track their movements and behavior.
Thanks to the team for the effort and stamina it takes to pull this off 💤
@koivulakari.bsky.social @chorlnev.bsky.social
June 5, 2025 at 11:58 AM
A female Ruff enters her nest — a tent-like shelter hiding her precious eggs. She’s unringed for now, but she’ll receive her bands once the chicks hatch. #waders #ornithology
June 4, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Opera buffa? No, actually ruff male is dead serious in attracting females flying by to land at his lek. #waders #ornithology
May 26, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Peekaboo! First boreal owl nest for this spring. #helmipöllö #ornithology
April 1, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
In the LATEST ISSUE of IBIS

Disappearing aapa mires and why we should care: unnoticed climate change exacerbates drainage effects on birds | onlinelibrary.wiley....

Anthony D. Fox, Aleksi Lehikoinen | #ornithology 🪶
March 24, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
It's not real.
It's not us.
It's not bad.
It's too hard to fix.
It's too late.

Just about every climate denial argument I've ever heard is a variant of one of these five categories, and each one is as bad as the next.

Why? Because they all have the same goal: prevent action as long as possible.
March 10, 2025 at 7:59 PM
In large meadows, female ruffs prefer to place their nests close to male leks, even though these are not necessarily the safest locations available #ornithology (Hanna Algora, @chorlnev.bsky.social, @jellybb.bsky.social @vmpakanen.bsky.social et al: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Nests, Threats, and Leks: Nonrandom Distributions of Nests in Ruffs (Calidris pugnax)
This project investigates the nest distribution of the ruff (Calidris pugnax), an endangered shorebird. Using satellite imaging, we established a suitable breeding area and analyzed the factors influ....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
March 1, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
How do female ruffs choose their nest location? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... @koivulakari.bsky.social #ornithology
February 28, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
Increased wind flood frequency leads to decreased nest success of endangered waders in managed shore meadows | www.sciencedirect.co... | Biological Conservation | #ornithology 🪶
February 27, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Our study with @chorlnev.bsky.social, @vmpakanen.bsky.social, @jellybb.bsky.social, and others, using long-term data on dunlins and ruffs, shows that wind floods are a serious threat to the reproduction of waders in the Baltic Sea shore meadows. #ornithology www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
February 24, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
A wonderful team effort to characterize the actions of HSD17B2, a gene that helps some #ruff males to dial down their testosterone levels, got published @science.org (1/n)
A single gene underlies male mating morphs in ruff sandpipers, a new Science study finds. The results show how evolutionary changes in a single gene's structure, sequence, and regulation can drive significant diversity within a single species.

Learn more in our new issue: https://scim.ag/4arzNmU
January 24, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
Hats off! (or rather PhD hat on?). James Tolliver overcame a lot of personal challenges to successfully defend his PhD today. Like the title of his thesis: "Ruff persistence...". Very proud that he has fledged!
January 22, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Northern Finland (65°N) this afternoon after sunset. Polar stratospheric clouds.
January 18, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
Read up this amazing blog with fabulous ruff lekking videos from our last field season 🥰
Who says #nature #documentaries need classical music?
In July I also worked on a project related to the #behavioural #ecology of #ruffs. Their #courtship #behaviour is memorizing. My new blog on my website tries to tries to convey this feeling.

More: simonvandepitte.com/i-am-sexy-an...
January 16, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
Who says #nature #documentaries need classical music?
In July I also worked on a project related to the #behavioural #ecology of #ruffs. Their #courtship #behaviour is memorizing. My new blog on my website tries to tries to convey this feeling.

More: simonvandepitte.com/i-am-sexy-an...
January 15, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
Fieldwork delights. Lekking #ruffs trying to attract females at Liminka Bay, Finland.
Who says #nature #documentaries need classical music?
In July I also worked on a project related to the #behavioural #ecology of #ruffs. Their #courtship #behaviour is memorizing. My new blog on my website tries to tries to convey this feeling.

More: simonvandepitte.com/i-am-sexy-an...
January 16, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
New paper out in @rsocpublishing.bsky.social! Research from our group shows that males of the polygynous ruff visit many potential breeding sites within a breeding season, travelling up to 9000 km and visiting up to 23 different sites! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... 1/7
January 8, 2025 at 7:07 AM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
At the end of last year, we had a flurry of accepted manuscripts that are going to be published over the next weeks. The first one is already out. Those tiny #Ruff 🐥 have personalities - wonderful work by Veronika Rohr published in Ethology doi.org/10.1111/eth.... 🧵 (1/7)
Sex and Morph Variation in Activity From Early Ontogeny to Maturity in Ruffs (Calidris pugnax)
We measured the activity (distance travelled in an open-field test) in young ruffs multiple times throughout their first two years of life. Besides the two sexes, ruffs feature three mating morphs (i...
doi.org
January 8, 2025 at 9:59 AM
Reposted by Kari Koivula
Aapa mires are really important for Broad-billed Sandpipers, as discussed in recent blog:
wadertales.wordpress.com/2024/12/08/b...
But climate change and drainage affect many other species too. See paper in @ibisjournal.bsky.social ⬇️
#ornithology
December 18, 2024 at 1:36 PM