Scotland holds numerous internationally important populations of protected species, including the study's focal species, the European shag

A University of Aberdeen scientist has been awarded EUR2.5million by the European Research Council (ERC) to lead a team in predicting how seabird populations on the east coast of Scotland will respond to increasingly extreme seasonal weather conditions.

Researchers from Aberdeen, the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), and the Norwegian University for Science and Technology (NTNU), will try to predict how wild populations, and in particular European shags, will evolve in response to increasing frequencies of extreme winter storms.