Landfill foraging in migratory birds: pain or gain?

Human pressure is threatening many animal species to the edge of extinction. However, living close to humans might also come with advantages. The increase production in food waste from human activities and its deposition on open garbage dumps results in many birds and mammals using these landfills as food source. While research so far reported potential benefits associated with foraging on landfills such as improved productivity and population increases, we hypothesize that this phenomenon could carry costs over the longer term, including increased risk of infections and physiological damage, and altered immunological responses. These effects could ultimately influence subsequent life history cycles associated with migratory behaviour and foraging strategies. To date, however, this remains largely untested, and this project is an attempt to fill such knowledge gap. We will use a migratory bird, the White Stork (Ciconia ciconia) as our study system. This charismatic species is particularly well-suited for the project because its behaviour and ecology have been strongly impacted by anthropogenic food waste. The study will be carried out in a wellmonitored population of white storks in Poland. By tracking individuals since their early post-natal growth (nestling stage), we aim to assess if and how parental foraging strategies (landfills vs. non-landfill) influence subsequent migration behaviour and survival, and to which extent these correlate with changes in biomarkers of nutritional and health statuses at the individual level. In addition, we will use highly innovative animal tracking technology to test whether landfill foraging behaviour is transferred from parents to offspring (or unrelated neighbouring individuals) and maintained throughout later stages of life.