Authors: JULIET A. VICKERY, JOHN W. MALLORD, WILLIAM M. ADAMS, ALISON E. BERESFORD,CHRISTIAAN BOTH, WILL CRESSWELL, NGONE DIOP, STEVEN R. EWING, RICHARD D. GREGORY, CATRIONA A. MORRISON, FIONA J. SANDERSON, KASPER THORUP, RIEN E. VAN WIJK, & CHRIS M. HEWSON
Year: 2023
Publication: Ibis
Publication Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ibi.13171
Keywords: connectivity, dispersal, East Atlantic flyway, tree establishment, trial solutions
Abstract: The global long-term decline of migrant birds represents an important and challenging
issue for conservation scientists and practitioners. This review draws together recent
research directed at the Afro-Palaearctic flyway and considers its implications for conservation.
The greatest advances in knowledge have been made in the field of tracking.
These studies reveal many species to be highly dispersed in the non-breeding season,
suggesting that site-level conservation at a small number of locations will almost certainly
be of limited value for most species. Instead, widespread but ‘shallow’ land-sharing solutions
are likely to be more effective but, because any local changes in Africa will affect
many European populations, any impact will be extremely difficult to detect through
monitoring in the breeding grounds. Targeted action to boost productivity in Europe
may help to halt declines of some species but reversing declines for many species is also
likely to require these ‘shallow’ land-sharing approaches in non-breeding areas. The
retention or planting of native trees in the humid and arid zones within Africa may be a
generic conservation tool, especially if planting is concentrated on favoured tree species.
Overall, and despite a growing knowledge, we remain largely unable to progress beyond
general flyway-level actions, such as maintaining suitable habitat across an increasingly
anthropogenic landscape for generalists, targeted site-based conservation for specialists
and at stop-over sites, protection of species from hunting, and individual species-level
solutions. We remain unable to assess the cost-effectiveness of more specific conservation
mainly because of uncertainty around how migrant populations are affected by
conditions during passage and on the non-breeding grounds, as well as around the efficacy
of implementation of actions, particularly in non-breeding areas. For advances in
knowledge to develop and implement effective conservation, scientific approaches need
to be better integrated with each other and implemented across the full annual cycle.
However, we urge the immediate use of available scientific knowledge rather than waiting
for a complete understanding, and that any action is combined with species monitoring
and adaptive management across the flyway.