Izzy Langley

Can African penguins be brought back from the brink? Better designed no-fishing zones could help A new court order seeks to protect African penguins, which are critically endangered.

Studying overlap with fisheries can help highlight important areas for protection 🐧 Check out my little article! After spending so long learning to write for scientific audiences, it was an interesting experience learning how to write for the public but I highly recommend!

The NERC Special Committee on Seals (SCOS) 2025 report is now live on the SMRU website: www.smru.st-andrews.ac.uk/files/2026/0....
Updated population trends analysis and advice to gov relating to management of UK seal populations 🦭📈📉

We are seeking a 3+ year postdoc in ocean modelling, to work on an exciting project investigating underwater tsunamis in Antarctica.

More about the project here: www.polomints.ac.uk
Read more about the post here: lnkd.in/eBjndZPv

Please share and help connect us with the best candidates!

Really excited to see this out and have contributed to a fascinating story in marine mammal science! Fab collab between SMRU and the Sable Island team, bringing together seal scientists from both sides of the Atlantic. Thanks to @oceanfrontier.bsky.social for my visiting fellowship!

Temporal changes in the dietary niche of sympatric seals provides insight into the role of competition in population declines Competition theory suggests that interspecific prey competition can result in changes to the dietary niche, but obtaining timeseries of data from sympatric species experiencing temporal variation in ...

New publication led by SMRU's @izzylangley.bsky.social on competition between grey & harbour seals in Scotland using 20+ yrs of diet data. Many thanks to all who collected samples, and collaborators from the Lighthouse Field Station and Institute of Marine Research
#OA Paper: doi.org/10.1002/oik....

🦭 We have a new paper out! We developed an accessible framework for assessing the risk of collision between seals and operating tidal turbines.
⏭️ We found that most seal tracks moved near the turbine without collision.
Read it here: doi.org/10.1002/aqc....
@seamammalresearch.bsky.social

The diffusion of cooperative and solo bubble net feeding in Canadian Pacific humpback whales Abstract. Animal culture, information and behaviours acquired and shared by social learning are a form of biodiversity with intrinsic and practical value.

New paper on the social learning of bubble net feeding by humpbacks in British Columbia, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B 🐋
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

#marmam @bcwhales.bsky.social @seamammalresearch.bsky.social @lrendell.bsky.social @uniofstandrews.bsky.social [1/5]

Our recent paper on grey and harbour seal transboundary distribution made the cover of @jappliedecology.bsky.social! 😀🦭Thanks to Dr Kelly Robinson of @seamammalresearch.bsky.social for the photo!
Check the paper here: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Marine Mammals in the Anthropocene: Developing a Systematic Evidence Base of Threats to Nineteen Species Marine mammals are vulnerable to a variety of anthropogenic threats, yet a global systematic map of the literature for 19 species found both spatial and temporal disparity in research effort between ....

🚨 NEW PUBLICATION! 🐳🎉

Our new review paper, now published in Mammal Review, maps the the literature focusing on threats to 19 marine mammal species, to summarise volume of research, and highlight knowledge gaps (for species, locations, threats).

Read it here: doi.org/10.1111/mam....

Researchers from the School of Psychology and Neuroscience have developed a new AI tool which hopes to remove the bottleneck in animal movement analysis 🪲🖥️🥳

Read more... 👇

https://ow.ly/GYv550Y147z

#EverToExcel

Our winner for best poster at #UKIRSC26 was our very own @miahurst.bsky.social “An automated method for polynya detection using a geomorphon algorithm” 🏆🧊

Thank you to Seiche and Whales et al. ART for sponsoring this prize!

Eva-Maria S. Bønnelycke @eva-mariab.bsky.social explores how CO2 accumulation limits energy gain in freely diving grey seals, impacting their foraging efficiency. 🦭💨 #UKIRSC2026

Scale-dependent foraging behaviour and habitat associations of two sympatric marine top predators - Landscape Ecology Context Theoretical research has considered how animals should optimise foraging strategies to maximise fitness, adapting search scale to exploit different habitats and minimise competition. Empirical...

New #OA paper in Landscape Ecology led by SMRU researchers @mattidcarter.bsky.social and @djfrussell.bsky.social reveals scale-dependent foraging behaviour and habitat associations of grey and harbour seals across the North Sea 🦭🧭 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

My first research paper, "Can Hematological Biomarkers Indicate Diagnoses and Prognosis in Stranded Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina)?", has been published! Read it here: doi.org/10.1111/mms....

#publishedarticle #marinebiology #marinemammals #research @seamammalresearch.bsky.social

Great talk by @izzylangley.bsky.social of @seamammalresearch.bsky.social at #BES2025 on intraguild predation and UK seal population trends. Check the paper here: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

If you are attending the @britishecologicalsociety.org conference #BES2025 in Edinburgh, look out for exciting seal research from SMRU folk @izzylangley.bsky.social @mattidcarter.bsky.social @eva-mariab.bsky.social and Mia Goldman

More interesting SMRU research being presented at #BES2025 by Georgina Whittome! 🐋

At‐sea distribution of seals on the Northwest European Shelf: Towards transboundary conservation and management This study provides the first comprehensive, regionally scalable distribution estimates for pinnipeds across the NWES and its constituent countries. The modelling framework is adaptable to other cent....

New @jappliedecology.bsky.social paper: SMRU researchers @mattidcarter.bsky.social & @djfrussell.bsky.social led a large collaborative team to map the distribution of grey and harbour seals at sea across the Northwest European Shelf 🦭 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

We’re looking for an enthusiastic #PhD candidate to explore the resilience of sea turtle populations in a changing climate, supervised by Leo Clarke and myself. Interested in sea #turtles, #marine #biology, #conservation & #fieldwork in Cape Verde. Funded by ACCE+ NERC DLA tinyurl.com/dm573yrm

Postdoc position in eDNA/eRNA based in beautiful Faroe Islands, with some time in Greenland for fieldwork and research visit. “Tracking spatial and temporal distribution of marine mammals in the Atlantic Arctic with environmental DNA”
setur.totalview.cloud/recruitment/...
🐋🐬🧬🧪🛥️

New study, collab with @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social: reduced adult survival for harbour seals in areas of pop. decline in Scotland. tinyurl.com/ys4hc3jw Mark-recapture models applied to photo-ID data from 3 sites with contrasting pop. trajectories to generate concurrent survival and fecundity rates.

Our new publication with @strandings.bsky.social & #SMRUsealpred contributors. A first attempt at quantifying grey seal predation of marine mammals and the potential impact on declining harbour seal populatons. Check it out! doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Intraguild predation in sympatric seals and the effect on a declining population This study examined the prevalence, spatial extent, and temporal trends of grey seal intraguild predation (IGP). We demonstrated the utility of integrating disparate datasets to address conservation ....

New study led by SMRU's @izzylangley.bsky.social in collaboration with @strandings.bsky.social: evidence for grey seal predation of grey seals, harbour seals and harbour porpoises across Scotland, at levels that could prevent recovery of depleted populations. tinyurl.com/4r3wka6a

A wonderful conference for ECRs working in marine mammal science in the UK! Share far and wide 😍

Great talk by @philippawright.bsky.social at CWW - fish for thought!

🐋 FINAL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS AND CHECKS!🐋

Help us develop a global atlas collating worldwide examples of the variety of ways citizen and community scientists have contributed to marine mammal research!

Check out the current map here: bit.ly/CitSciMap And read below for submission info 🌊

Getting the Seal of Approval: Marine Animals as Ocean Scientists - Dundee Heritage Trust From weather forecasting to understanding climate change, Dr Lars Boehme from the Sea Mammal Research Unit will discuss how seals can help us.

🚀 Upcoming Talk! 🚀

Dr Lars Boehme from SMRU (@seamammalresearch.bsky.social) will share how SMRU Instrumentation tags and seals can help advance marine science. 🦭

📍 Discovery Point, Dundee.
📆 Sat 13 & Sun 14 September
🕧 12:30 pm both days

More info: www.dundeeheritagetrust.co.uk/event/how-se...

Please share!
We are still looking for more mentors for @theseabirdgroup.bsky.social Guillemates!

Are you a mid-career seabirder (or beyond) wanting to help support ECRs and can run 4 sessions throughout the year🐧🐥👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

Sign up here: forms.gle/MuQLcdaZHtxU...

🎉 Exciting to see this paper published using @smruinstrument.bsky.social tags to study diving behaviour and physiology of free divers! Congrats to the authors! 👏🔬📡 @smruecophys.bsky.social @chrismcknight.bsky.social

Read the paper here: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Fab day meeting the scientists researching the whales of South Georgia at the gorgeous @vadundee.bsky.social ‪yesterday! 🐋 #whaleofaweekend @southgeorgiaht.bsky.social @polarbiome.bsky.social @jlkershaw.bsky.social