Susanne Åkesson (born 1964) is a Swedish migration expert. She is a professor of Zoology at Lund University. She was a member of the team that proposed that the stripes on zebras deter insects like tabanidae.

Life

Åkesson was born in Östhammar in 1964. She is a professor of Zoology at Lund University, where she is also the Director of the Centre for Animal Movement Research (CAnMove). In 2009 she shared the

August Prize The August Prize ( sv, Augustpriset) is an annual Swedish literary prize awarded each year since 1989 by the Swedish Publishers' Association. The prize is awarded to the best Swedish book of the year, in three categories. Prize In the years 1989- ...

with photographer Brutus Östling for their book about the migration of birds. This was the first time the prize had been given for a non-fiction book about a natural science subject. She has co-written research which proposes that the stripes of a zebra may deter horseflies as they find them unattractive. Along with her colleagues, she received the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics for this research in 2016. Her research about stripes on zebras has been continued. Researchers believe that the colour difference in the stripes leads also to a temperature difference which confuses the tabanidae. These insects rely on finding blood vessels which they locate based on temperature. According to 2023 research the insects lear that they cannot easily find blood vessels on striped skin and soon learn to look elsewhere. She has worked on research showing that male Caspian terns lead their young on their first migration, transmitting cultural knowledge of migration, that several species of birds respond significantly to moonlight, and that

Common swifts Common may refer to: Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts * Clapham Common, originally com ...

spend months at a time in the air without landing. She is a fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Akesson, Susanne 1964 births Living people People from Östhammar Municipality Academic staff of Lund University 21st-century Swedish zoologists August Prize winners Swedish women academics Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences