The Oxford Navigation Group
Graduate Opportunities
Migration & Navigation in shearwaters
Procellariiform seabirds, such as shearwaters, are some of the most mobile species on earth, from trans-hemispheric annual migrations to perhaps the longest foraging trips known for a central place forager. Spending most of their long lives at sea, shearwaters and their relatives have traditionally been hard to study, but with modern developments in miniature biotelemetry and new analytical approaches to tracking data we are starting to see into their extraordinary lives on the ocean.
At OxNav, based in the Department of Biology’s new Life and Mind Building at Oxford University, we are interested in many questions bridging behaviour, ecology and conservation, utilising Manx shearwaters as our model system. We now have 20 years of precision GPS data tracking foraging behaviour, and 15 years of archival light logger data tracking migration, from colonies across the species’ core breeding range. These deep datasets, which we expand every year, are starting to allow us to tackle questions from marine resource use (and how it is changing with changing climate) to navigational control mechanisms underpinning long-distance movement.
Understanding the control mechanisms and consequences of migration in shearwaters (a 25000km annual round trip from UK to the Southern Ocean and back) is now becoming possible, and will be a particular objective of our research in the coming years. How do fledgling shearwaters achieve their first trans-hemispheric, trans-Atlantic migration? How do they re-find their natal colony when they first return to breed years later? How is the timing of migration optimised in relation to the rigours of a long breeding attempt, or the vagaries of unpredictable (and changing) weather patterns, food resources, re-fueling stop-overs, and the costs of long-distance travel? Do individuals vary in their migratory strategies, do they coordinate with their long-term partner, and can they “catch up” if they fall behind?
These are amongst the questions we will be chasing in the coming years and could be suitable topics of a DPhil research project. We specialise in the deployment, development, and analytics of miniature bird-borne biotelemetry systems to study natural behaviour in the wild, and we work in a range of often remote seabird colonies from the Faroes to the Mediterranean islands, with our main study site Skomer Island, Wales. We are always looking for talented students to join the OxNav team, and are happy to discuss a range of potential DPhil project opportunities with interested applicants who have shown high achievement in their first degree and/or Masters in Biology or a related relevant subject. Students with fieldwork interests and good analytical and quantitative skills would be especially suited to our pelagic seabird research.
Whilst there are a very small number of scholarship funding opportunities available directly through the Department of Biology (https://www.biology.ox.ac.uk/dphil#tab-5514381) competitive applicants will be encouraged to apply for other funding opportunities and scholarships available through the University of Oxford, and elsewhere, such as the doctoral training schemes. Visit our publications page here for further information on our work and current interests.
References
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Siddiqi-Davies, K, et al., (2024) “Behavioural responses of a trans-hemispheric migrant to climate oscillation.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B.291:20241924. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.1944
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Padget, O. et al., (2019) “Shearwaters know the direction and distance home, but fail to encode intervening obstacles after free-ranging foraging trips.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116 (43): 21629-21633
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Wynn, J, et al., (2020) “Natal imprinting to the Earth’s magnetic field in a pelagic seabird.” Current Biology, 30:1-5.
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Morford, J, Lewin, P, Jaggers, P, Wynn, J, Guilford, T, & Padget, O. (2025) “Almost there: learning to navigate approximately with a grid map.” Behavioural Processes 231:105245. doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2025.105245.
Funding
This project is part of the DPhil in Biology programme, and is not a funded course at the University of Oxford; as such, students are expected to explore options for funding. However, the Biology Department anticipates being able to offer around 6 full graduate scholarships to incoming DPhil students in 2026/27.
You will be automatically considered for several Oxford scholarships, which cover fees and stipend, if you fulfil the eligibility criteria and submit your graduate application by 8 January 2026. Scholarships are awarded based on academic achievement and potential to excel as a DPhil student. For further details about searching for funding as a graduate student visit the graduate study information on the Department website.
Graduate applications & scholarships (deadlines to be updated)
Department of Biology (Deadline 4th March 2026 for unfunded places, but 8th January 2026 to be considered for scholarships). https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/dphil-biology
Integrative Life and Environmental Science Landscape Award (Deadline 8th January 2026)
Intelligent Earth Centre for Doctoral Training (Deadline 7th January 2026)
https://intelligent-earth.ox.ac.uk/home