I coordinate Finnish common bird monitoring schemes and lead my research group the Helsinki Lab of Ornithology in the Finnish Museum of Natural History. I wrote my first bird observations in year 1987. I started my biology studies in 1999 and finished my MSc thesis about population dynamics and diet of the Great Cormorant in 2003. In my PhD thesis (2009), I studied impact of climate and food availability on timing of breeding and breeding success of eight bird species. I have been working in the Finnish Museum of Natural History since November 2009. I'm also an active at the Hanko Bird Observatory and board member of the European Bird Census Council and a member of the Finnish rarity committee of BirdLife Finland.

Research topics

• Birds as indicators of environmental change
• Birds in changing climate
• Conservation and management
• Fascinating bird migration

Publications and activities

• Research database TUHAT
• Twitter: @AksuLehikoinen

Monitoring and birds as indicators of environmental change

Habitats and their quality are changing all the time because of human influence and natural processes. Impacts of agriculture, forestry, drainage of peatlands and eutrophication are examples of human caused habitat changes. Succession of forests and fluctuation of the seed crop of tree species are on the other hand examples of natural processes, which affect habitat type and quality. My group uses bird monitoring data to study how bird populations fluctuate and how populations are responding to changes in the environment. Finnish monitoring schemes are part of international monitoring network and I'm acting in the board of the European Bird Census Council, which coordinates the bird monitoring in Europe. In recent years state of the biodiversity has been increasingly started to monitor using status indicators of species. My projects include developing and updating of habitat specific status indicators of birds.

•    Doctoral student Purabi Deshpande is studying native bird species interact with introduced non native plant species
•    Post-doc research Sari Holopainen is investigating reasons for population changes of breeding waterbirds in Finland

Birds in changing climate

In addition to human caused habitat change, global climate change affects the environment. The effect of climate change on populations is not necessarily independent, but interacts with land use practicies. Climate change causes shifts in species' migration and breeding phenology and distribution areas. My group is studying for instance, which factors are explaining the species-specific variation in response to climate change.

•    Post-doc Laura Bosco investigates cumulative responses of birds to climate change
•    Doctoral researcher Josephine Couet investigates altitudinal changes of bird communities under climate change in Europe  
•    Doctoral researcher Leena Hintsanen studies the role of protected areas on mitigating the changes in bird communities 
•    Doctoral researcher Katja Koskenpato investigates variation in winter survival of tawny owl colour morphs 
•    Post-doc Emma-Liina Marjakangas is examining the role of climate change on bird communities
•    Post-doc Yanjie Xu studies potential climate driven spread of pathogenic diseases carried by birds and bats

Conservation, environmental change and management

Traditional nature conservation is to establish protection areas for species. Status of the protection areas does not necessarily remain stable because of large-scale environmental changes such as climate change and eutrophication. For instance climate change is shifting species distributions, but position of the protection areas are constant. Because of this, it is important to investigate do the protection areas ameliorate species in relation to climate driven range shifts. Quality of the protection areas can also be improved using management actions. To make management cost-efficient, it is important to investigate the effects of different action types.

•    Doctoral researcher Anna Haukka studies what kind of species are vulnerable for illegal and legal trade of birds
•    Post-doc Sanna Mäkeläinen evaluates effects of land use on birds and flying squirrel using environmental impact assessment data  
•    Doctoral researcher Sirke Piirainen is examining what factors affect species' risk to be endangered  

Fascinating bird migration

Majority of the bird species in North Europe are migratory spending part of their life cycle outside breeding areas. Because of this their population dynamics for instance can be affected by environmental changes during the both winter and summer areas. Long-term bird ringing has revealed migration routes of species and current modern tracking devices enables to investigate migration online in the globe (look at research pages of Jari Valkama). Annual migration numbers and phenology of birds are also affected by environmental changes. In our research, we are for instance combining migration data with the species distribution data to improve our understanding about overall changes in the bird populations. In addition, we are studying processes of bird migration. The key source of the bird migration data is the Hanko Bird Observatory, which is maintained by the Ornithological Society of Helsinki region, Tringa.

•    MSc student Jenni Heiskanen studies phenological changes in autumn migration of birds 

•    Doctoral researcher Andreas Otterbeck is investigating connections between population dynamics, migration and climate change