Weak effects of geolocators on small birds: A meta-analysis controlled for phylogeny and publication bias

Abstract Currently, the deployment of tracking devices is one of the most frequently used approaches to study movement ecology of birds. Recent miniaturization of light‐level geolocators enabled studying small bird species whose migratory patterns were widely unknown. However, geolocators may reduce vital rates in tagged birds and may bias obtained movement data. There is a need for a thorough assessment of the potential tag effects on small birds, as previous meta‐analyses did not evaluate unpublished data and impact of multiple life‐history traits, focused mainly on large species and the number of published studies tagging small birds has increased substantially. We quantitatively reviewe…

Deep-learning based reconstruction of the shower maximum X max using the water-Cherenkov detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The atmospheric depth of the air shower maximum $X_{\mathrm{max}}$ is an observable commonly used for the determination of the nuclear mass composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. Direct measurements of $X_{\mathrm{max}}$ are performed using observations of the longitudinal shower development with fluorescence telescopes. At the same time, several methods have been proposed for an indirect estimation of $X_{\mathrm{max}}$ from the characteristics of the shower particles registered with surface detector arrays. In this paper, we present a deep neural network (DNN) for the estimation of $X_{\mathrm{max}}$. The reconstruction relies on the signals induced by shower particles in the groun…

Design, upgrade and characterization of the silicon photomultiplier front-end for the AMIGA detector at the Pierre Auger Observatory

The successful installation, commissioning, and operation of the Pierre Auger Observatory would not have been possible without the strong commitment and effort from the technical and administrative staff in Malargue. We are very grateful to the following agencies and organizations for financial support: Argentina -Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica; Agencia Nacional de Promocion Cientifica y Tecnologica (ANPCyT); Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas (CONICET); Gobierno de la Provincia de Mendoza; Municipalidad de Malargue; NDM Holdings and Valle Las Lenas; in gratitude for their continuing cooperation over land access; Australia -the Australian Research Council; Braz…

Tracking migration of black‐headed buntings Emberiza melanocephala reveals the Iranian Plateau as an ecological barrier along the Indo‐European flyway

The black-headed bunting is one of the few species that migrate along the Indo-European flyway, and its migration routes and phenology are poorly understood. We provide the first individual-based year-round tracking study describing route choice and timing of black-headed buntings migrating from a breeding site in Croatia to a 6000 km distant non-breeding region in Maharashtra, central India. To evaluate landscapes important for the black-headed bunting migration, we quantified land covers and climates along the migration corridor. Stopover areas during the post-breeding migration were concentrated in four distinct regions: the Balkan Peninsula, central Anatolia, along with the Zagros mount…

The FRAM robotic telescope for atmospheric monitoring at the Pierre Auger Observatory

FRAM (F/Photometric Robotic Atmospheric Monitor) is a robotic telescope operated at the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina for the purposes of atmospheric monitoring using stellar photometry. As a passive system which does not produce any light that could interfere with the observations of the fluorescence telescopes of the observatory, it complements the active monitoring systems that use lasers. We discuss the applications of stellar photometry for atmospheric monitoring at optical observatories in general and the particular modes of operation employed by the Auger FRAM. We describe in detail the technical aspects of FRAM, the hardware and software requirements for a successful operati…

Design and implementation of the AMIGA embedded system for data acquisition

The successful installation, commissioning, and operation of the Pierre Auger Observatory would not have been possible without the strong commitment and effort from the technical and admin-istrative staff in Malargtie. We are very grateful to the following agencies and organizations for financial support: Comision Nacional de Energla Atomica, Agencia Nacional de Promocion Cientffica y Tec-nologica (ANPCyT) , Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientfficas y Tecnicas (CONICET) , Gobierno de la Provincia de Mendoza, Municipalidad de Malargtie, NDM Holdings and Valle Las Leilas, in gratitude for their continuing cooperation over land access, Argentina; the Australian Research Council; Conselho…

Reconstruction of events recorded with the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory

Cosmic rays arriving at Earth collide with the upper parts of the atmosphere, thereby inducing extensive air showers. When secondary particles from the cascade arrive at the ground, they are measured by surface detector arrays. We describe the methods applied to the measurements of the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory to reconstruct events with zenith angles less than 60 using the timing and signal information recorded using the water-Cherenkov detector stations. In addition, we assess the accuracy of these methods in reconstructing the arrival directions of the primary cosmic ray particles and the sizes of the induced showers.

Testing effects of Lorentz invariance violation in the propagation of astroparticles with the Pierre Auger Observatory

The successful installation, commissioning, and operation of the Pierre Auger Observatory would not have been possible without the strong commitment and effort from the technical and administrative staff in Malargüe. We are very grateful to the following agencies and organizations for financial support: Argentina — Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (ANPCyT); Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET); Gobierno de la Provincia de Mendoza; Municipalidad de Malargüe; NDM Holdings and Valle Las Leñas; in gratitude for their continuing cooperation over land access; Australia — the Australian Research Council; Be…

First records of complete annual cycles in water rails Rallus aquaticus show evidence of itinerant breeding and a complex migration system

Abstract In water rails Rallus aquaticus, northern and eastern populations are migratory while southern and western populations are sedentary. Few details are known about the annual cycle of this elusive species. We studied movements and breeding in water rails from southernmost Norway where the species occurs year-round. Colour-ringed wintering birds occurred only occasionally at the study site in summer, and vice versa. Geolocator tracks revealed that wintering birds (n = 10) migrated eastwards in spring to breed on both sides of the Baltic Sea, whereas a single breeding bird from the study site wintered in north Italy. Ambient light records of geolocator birds further indicated that all …

Measurement of the Fluctuations in the Number of Muons in Extensive Air Showers with the Pierre Auger Observatory

The successful installation, commissioning, and operation of the Pierre Auger Observatory would not have been possible without the strong commitment and effort from the technical and administrative staff in Malargue. We are very grateful to the following agencies and organizations for financial support: Argentina-Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica, Agencia Nacional de Promocion Cientifica y Tecnologica (ANPCyT), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas (CONICET), Gobierno de la Provincia de Mendoza, Municipalidad de Malargue, NDM Holdings and Valle Las Lenas; in gratitude for their continuing cooperation over land access; Australia-the Australian Research Council; Brazil…

The energy spectrum of cosmic rays beyond the turn-down around 1017 eV as measured with the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The successful installation, commissioning, and operation of the Pierre Auger Observatory would not have been possible without the strong commitment and effort from the technical and administrative staff in Malargüe. We are very grateful to the following agencies and organizations for financial support: Argentina – Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (ANPCyT); Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET); Gobierno de la Provincia de Mendoza; Municipalidad de Malargüe; NDM Holdings and Valle Las Leñas; in gratitude for their continuing cooperation over land access; Australia – the Australian Research Council; Be…

Extraction of the Muon Signals Recorded with the Surface Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory Using Recurrent Neural Networks

The Pierre Auger Observatory, at present the largest cosmic-ray observatory ever built, is instrumented with a ground array of 1600 water-Cherenkov detectors, known as the Surface Detector (SD). The SD samples the secondary particle content (mostly photons, electrons, positrons and muons) of extensive air showers initiated by cosmic rays with energies ranging from $10^{17}~$eV up to more than $10^{20}~$eV. Measuring the independent contribution of the muon component to the total registered signal is crucial to enhance the capability of the Observatory to estimate the mass of the cosmic rays on an event-by-event basis. However, with the current design of the SD, it is difficult to straightfo…

Integrating light‐level geolocation with activity tracking reveals unexpected nocturnal migration patterns of the tawny pipit

Studies on the response of a water-Cherenkov detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory to atmospheric muons using an RPC hodoscope

Extensive air showers, originating from ultra-high energy cosmic rays, have been successfully measured through the use of arrays of water-Cherenkov detectors (WCDs). Sophisticated analyses exploiting WCD data have made it possible to demonstrate that shower simulations, based on different hadronic-interaction models, cannot reproduce the observed number of muons at the ground. The accurate knowledge of the WCD response to muons is paramount in establishing the exact level of this discrepancy. In this work, we report on a study of the response of a WCD of the Pierre Auger Observatory to atmospheric muons performed with a hodoscope made of resistive plate chambers (RPCs), enabling us to selec…

Features of the Energy Spectrum of Cosmic Rays above 2.5×10$^{18}$ eV Using the Pierre Auger Observatory

We report a measurement of the energy spectrum of cosmic rays above $2.5{\times} 10^{18}$ eV based on $215,030$ events. New results are presented: at about $1.3{\times} 10^{19}$ eV, the spectral index changes from $2.51 \pm 0.03 \textrm{ (stat.)} \pm 0.05 \textrm{ (sys.)}$ to $3.05 \pm 0.05 \textrm{ (stat.)}\pm 0.10\textrm{ (sys.)}$, evolving to $5.1\pm0.3\textrm{ (stat.)} \pm 0.1\textrm{ (sys.)}$ beyond $5{\times} 10^{19}$ eV, while no significant dependence of spectral features on the declination is seen in the accessible range. These features of the spectrum can be reproduced in models with energy-dependent mass composition. The energy density in cosmic rays above $5{\times} 10^{18}$ eV …

Movements of water rails from Norway-reference-data

Lislevand T, Hahn S, Rislaa S, Briedis M. 2020. First records of complete annual cycles in water rails Rallus aquaticus show evidence of itinerant breeding and a complex migration system. J Avian Biol. doi:10.1111/jav.02595

Data from: First records of complete annual cycles in water rails Rallus aquaticus show evidence of itinerant breeding and a complex migration system

In water rails Rallus aquaticus, northern and eastern populations are migratory while southern and western populations are sedentary. Few details are known about the annual cycle of this elusive species. We studied movements and breeding in water rails from southernmost Norway where the species occurs year-round. Colour-ringed wintering birds occurred only occasionally at the study site in summer, and vice versa. Geolocator tracks revealed that wintering birds (n = 10) migrated eastwards in spring to breed on both sides of the Baltic Sea, whereas a single breeding bird from the study site wintered in north Italy. Ambient light records of geolocator birds further indicated that all but one i…

Movements of water rails from Norway-tracks

Lislevand T, Hahn S, Rislaa S, Briedis M. 2020. First records of complete annual cycles in water rails Rallus aquaticus show evidence of itinerant breeding and a complex migration system. J Avian Biol. doi:10.1111/jav.02595

Movements of water rails from Norway-light-levels

Lislevand T, Hahn S, Rislaa S, Briedis M. 2020. First records of complete annual cycles in water rails Rallus aquaticus show evidence of itinerant breeding and a complex migration system. J Avian Biol. doi:10.1111/jav.02595