Simultaneous declines in summer survival of three shorebird species signals a flyway at risk

There is increasing concern about the world's animal migrations. With many land-use and climatological changes occurring simultaneously, pinning down the causes of large-scale conservation problems requires sophisticated and data-intensive approaches. Declining shorebird numbers along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway, in combination with data on habitat loss along the Yellow Sea (where these birds refuel during long-distance migrations), indicate a flyway under threat. If habitat loss at staging areas indeed leads to flyway-wide bird losses, we would predict that: (i) decreases in survival only occur during the season that birds use the Yellow Sea, and (ii) decreases in survival occur in migrants that share a reliance on the vanishing intertidal flats along the Yellow Sea, even if ecologically distinct and using different breeding grounds. Monitored from 2006–2013, we analysed seasonal apparent survival patterns of three shorebird species with non-overlapping Arctic breeding areas and...