Energy is the currency of life. Animals are under immense evolutionary pressure to acquire and spend energy efficiently. Active movements are energetically costly yet enable essential life functions. Animals locomote to exploit patchy resources, locate suitable habitat, find mates, evade predators, while the capacity for movement sets the limits for range distributions. Ecologically and morphologically distinct species have converged on similar intermittent strategies to move efficiently. In this strategy, animals alternate active bursting and inactive coasting phases to continually move horizontally (e.g., birds soaring in the air). During his Forrest research, Seth will focus on animal tracking datasets from avian and aquatic species (no biological wheels for terrestrial species!) to (1) quantify the energy savings of soaring and (2) uncover the ecological functions it enables.

Seth joins from the US, where he received his PhD in Biological Oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He is based at Murdoch University with fellow Forrest Scholars Rachel Newsome and Marie Windstein.