Migratory birds depend on a suite of sites across their annual cycles, making them vulnerable to a wide variety of anthropogenic pressures. Current area-based conservation measures have been found inadequate to safeguard migratory birds, in part due to a lack of consideration for the connectivity between sites mediated by the movements of individuals. To address this issue, we develop a network analysis integra...
As on intertidal flats across the globe, the migratory shorebirds that spend most of their annual cycle in the Bijagós Archipelago, Guinea-Bissau, feed on macro zoobenthic prey buried in the intertidal soft sediments. Understanding the diet of shorebirds throughout the period of residence in the Bijagós can help to under stand the degree of their trophic flexibility. In this study, we first reconstruct the diet...
Amongst other factors, host behaviour critically determines the patterns with which blood parasites occur in wild host populations. In particular, migratory hosts that sequentially occupy distant sites within and across years are expected to show distinct patterns of blood parasitism depending on their population-specific schedules and whereabouts. Here, we monitored haemosporidian parasitism in two populations...
Mechanisms underlying fat accumulation for long-distance migration are not fully understood. This is especially relevant in the context of global change, as many migrants are dealing with changes in natural habitats and associated food sources and energy stores. The continental Black-tailed godwit Limosa limosa limosa is a long-distance migratory bird that has undergone a considerable dietary shift over the pas...