Delineating ecologically distinct groups for annual cycle management of a declining shorebird
Date
2025-03-12
Authors
Knight, Elly C.
Carlisle, Jay
Boyce, Andy J.
Bradley, David
Cimprich, Paula
Coates, Stephanie
Gregory, Cory J.
Jorgensen, Joel G.
Kelly, Jeffrey F.
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John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society
Abstract
1. Patterns of migratory connectivity are increasingly used to understand and manage threats throughout the annual cycle of migratory species. Strong migratory connectivity refers to when individuals from different populations remain spatially separated across the annual cycle, which may expose populations to unique sets of threats and conditions that cause differential population trends. However, the populations or groups used for species' management are often defined a priori based on expert knowledge and/or management units, which may mask important population segregation and obscure differential population trends and their drivers.
2. We compared three approaches to defining management groups of a declining shorebird, the long-billed curlew (Numenius americanus), for annual cycle management: by expert-opinion, according to management flyways, and with unsupervised clustering of satellite tracking data that maximizes the strength of migratory connectivity.
3. Despite the curlews having a continuous breeding range and a pattern of parallel migration, all three approaches identified groups with different population trends, movement behaviours and habitat selection across the annual cycle, suggesting these are meaningful ecological groups. The expert and clustering approaches resulted in similar group structure, strong estimates of migratory connectivity (measured as MC = 0.64 across seasons), movement behaviour and habitat selection; however, the expert approach identified an additional divide between the easternmost grouping, which revealed strongly negative population trends in the group occupying the Chihuahuan desert during the stationary nonbreeding season. In contrast, the flyway delineation resulted in weaker estimates of migratory con- nectivity, marginal differences in population trends and less between-group differences in movement behaviour and habitat selection.
4. Synthesis and applications. Using measurements of migratory connectivity in concert with expert opinion can define ecologically distinct groups for wildlife management that differ in the environmental conditions they experience across seasons of the annual cycle, which is a key component for understanding and reversing declines of migratory species.
2. We compared three approaches to defining management groups of a declining shorebird, the long-billed curlew (Numenius americanus), for annual cycle management: by expert-opinion, according to management flyways, and with unsupervised clustering of satellite tracking data that maximizes the strength of migratory connectivity.
3. Despite the curlews having a continuous breeding range and a pattern of parallel migration, all three approaches identified groups with different population trends, movement behaviours and habitat selection across the annual cycle, suggesting these are meaningful ecological groups. The expert and clustering approaches resulted in similar group structure, strong estimates of migratory connectivity (measured as MC = 0.64 across seasons), movement behaviour and habitat selection; however, the expert approach identified an additional divide between the easternmost grouping, which revealed strongly negative population trends in the group occupying the Chihuahuan desert during the stationary nonbreeding season. In contrast, the flyway delineation resulted in weaker estimates of migratory con- nectivity, marginal differences in population trends and less between-group differences in movement behaviour and habitat selection.
4. Synthesis and applications. Using measurements of migratory connectivity in concert with expert opinion can define ecologically distinct groups for wildlife management that differ in the environmental conditions they experience across seasons of the annual cycle, which is a key component for understanding and reversing declines of migratory species.
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article
Comments
This article is published as Knight, Elly C., Jay Carlisle, Andy J. Boyce, David Bradley, Paula Cimprich, Stephanie Coates, Stephen J. Dinsmore et al. "Delineating ecologically distinct groups for annual cycle management of a declining shorebird." Journal of Applied Ecology (2025). doi:10.1111/1365-2664.14885.
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This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.
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Funding
U.S. Bureau of Land Management; BC Hydro; John and Adrienne Mars; American Prairie; California Department of Fish and Wildlife; Meg and Bert Raynes Wildlife Fund; Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation; Columbia Basin Trust; McDanel Land Foundation; Page Family Foundation; Wyoming Governor's Office Big Game License Coalition; ConocoPhillips; Environment and Climate Change Canada; Nature Conservancy; MPG Ranch; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Wyoming Game and Fish Department