Manon Clairbaux
Post Doctoral ResearcherResearchers UCC Blue Economy Coastal & Marine Systems
University College Cork
ei.ccu@xuabrialcm
OVERVIEW
Marine ecologist investigating the distribution, movement and foraging ecology of seabirds in Irish waters, with an overreaching aim to assess interactions with anthropogenic activities (for example offshore renewable energies and fisheries)
CURRENT ACTIVITIES
Manon is part of the Marine Research Programme, « Research for Policy Award ‘Bird disturbance and foraging ranges for Appropriate Assessment’ » project in order to map potential overlap between marine human activities and Irish seabirds, waders and waterbirds
BACKGROUND
Manon graduated with her PhD in 2020 at the University of Montpellier, with the dissertation of “Energetic landscapes of North Atlantic wintering seabirds in a climate change context”, supervised by David Grémillet. Following this, she did a 3 months post-doctoral contract at the CNRS in Montpellier, where she worked on Arctic black-legged kittiwake monitoring plan in order to optimize it including Indigenous Peoples. She joined UCC in 2021, working on the XROTOR project during which she investigated seabird collision and disturbance risk with offshore wind farms. Manon then pursued her research by investigating how interaction with fisheries impact seabird behaviour and energy balance during an IRC Postdoctoral fellowship.
She specialized in spatial ecology using onboard tracking devices (GLS, GPS, accelerometer) and advanced modeling in order to better understand how current and future environmental characteristics, as well as anthropogenic activities, impact seabird ecology and distribution. She currently developed new skills and research questions by deploying onboard camera and accelerometers on Northern gannets in order to better describe their foraging ecology.”
