NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (CNRS)

The liveliest of our feathered garden visitors, the little acrobatic blue tit, and her close cousin the great tit, can tell us a lot about how birds adapt to climate change, urbanisation and other changes in their environment. To mark this year’s International Day for Biological Diversity, we bring you the story of ERC grantee Anne Charmantier who studies how these songbirds are adapting to their fast-changing habitat and what that could mean for their long-term survival.

Illegal fishing destroys marine habitats and threatens species living at sea. The work of ERC grantee Henri Weimerskirch is helping authorities to crack down on these operations by developing the world’s first seabird ocean-surveillance system.

An ERC grant motivated Prof. Guust Nolet to move back to Europe to develop small underwater robots that could help us understand our planet’s structure. Ten years later, thanks to an industrial partnership funded by an additional ERC grant, these robots are also employed to monitor the health of our oceans.