The Far East taiga forest unrecognized inhospitable terrain for migrating Arctic-nesting waterbirds?

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Far East taiga forest unrecognized inhospitable terrain for migrating Arctic-nesting waterbirds?

AU - Wang, Xin

AU - Cao, Lei

AU - Bysykatova, Inga

AU - Xu, Zhenggang

AU - Rozenfeld, Sonia

AU - Jeong, Wooseog

AU - Vangeluwe, Didier

AU - Zhao, Yunlin

AU - Xie, Tianhe

AU - Yi, Kunpeng

AU - Fox, Anthony David

PY - 2018/2/20

Y1 - 2018/2/20

N2 - The degree of inhospitable terrain encountered by migrating birds can dramatically affect migration strategies and their evolution as well as influence the way we develop our contemporary flyway conservation responses to protect them. We used telemetry data from 44 tagged individuals of four large-bodied, Arctic breeding waterbird species (two geese, a swan and one crane species) to show for the first time that these birds fly non-stop over the Far East taiga forest, despite their differing ecologies and migration routes. This implies a lack of suitable taiga refuelling habitats for these long-distance migrants. These results underline the extreme importance of northeast China spring staging habitats and of Arctic areas prior to departure in autumn to enable birds to clear this inhospitable biome, confirming the need for adequate site safeguard to protect these populations throughout their annual cycle.

AB - The degree of inhospitable terrain encountered by migrating birds can dramatically affect migration strategies and their evolution as well as influence the way we develop our contemporary flyway conservation responses to protect them. We used telemetry data from 44 tagged individuals of four large-bodied, Arctic breeding waterbird species (two geese, a swan and one crane species) to show for the first time that these birds fly non-stop over the Far East taiga forest, despite their differing ecologies and migration routes. This implies a lack of suitable taiga refuelling habitats for these long-distance migrants. These results underline the extreme importance of northeast China spring staging habitats and of Arctic areas prior to departure in autumn to enable birds to clear this inhospitable biome, confirming the need for adequate site safeguard to protect these populations throughout their annual cycle.

KW - East Asian-Australasian Flyway

KW - Ecological barrier

KW - Geese

KW - Satellite tracking

KW - Siberian crane

KW - Swans

KW - SPRING MIGRATION

KW - BIRD MIGRATION

KW - GEESE

KW - SWANS

KW - BARRIERS

KW - BEWICKII

KW - AUTUMN

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85042383197

U2 - 10.7717/peerj.4353

DO - 10.7717/peerj.4353

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 29479493

SN - 2167-8359

VL - 6

JO - PeerJ

JF - PeerJ

IS - 2

M1 - 4353

ER -