Seasonal patterns and protection status of stopover hotspots for migratory landbirds in the eastern United States

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Author(s)Guo, Fengyi
Author(s)Buler, Jeffrey J.
Author(s)Smolinsky, Jaclyn A.
Author(s)Wilcove, David S.
Date Accessioned2024-02-15T20:41:49Z
Date Available2024-02-15T20:41:49Z
Publication Date2024-01-22
DescriptionThis article was originally published in Current Biology. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.11.033. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. This article will be embargoed until 01/22/2025.
AbstractSummary Migratory landbirds in North America are experiencing dramatic population declines. Although considerable research and conservation attention have been directed toward these birds’ breeding and wintering grounds, far less is known about the areas used as stopover sites during migration. To address this knowledge gap, we used 5 years of weather surveillance radar data to map seasonal stopover densities of landbirds across the eastern United States during spring and autumn migration. We identified stopover hotspots covering 2.47 million ha that consistently support high densities of migratory landbirds in spring or autumn. However, only 16.7% of these sites are hotspots in both seasons. The distribution of hotspots is shifted eastward in autumn compared with spring. Deciduous forest is the most important habitat type in both seasons, with deciduous forest fragments embedded in broadly deforested regions having the highest probability of being hotspots. The concentration of birds in these forest fragments is stronger in spring, especially in the agricultural Midwest. We found generally higher stopover densities in protected areas than in unprotected areas in both seasons. Nonetheless, only one-third of identified stopover hotspots have some sort of protected status, and more than half of these protected hotspots are subject to extractive uses. A well-distributed network of well-protected stopover areas, complementing conservation efforts on the breeding and wintering grounds, is essential to sustaining healthy populations of migratory landbirds in North America.
SponsorThis project was funded by the High Meadows Foundation to D.S.W. and USDA NIFA Hatch (DEL-00774) to J.J.B. and J.A.S. We are grateful to Jisu Jeong, Amir Touil, Jiayue Zhang, and David Dorini, who helped with radar data screening. We thank Yiwen Zeng for helping process the protected area data. We appreciate the feedback from two anonymous reviewers on earlier versions of this manuscript. We also thank the Princeton Research Computing Center for access to high-performance computing clusters.
CitationGuo, Fengyi, Jeffrey J. Buler, Jaclyn A. Smolinsky, and David S. Wilcove. “Seasonal Patterns and Protection Status of Stopover Hotspots for Migratory Landbirds in the Eastern United States.” Current Biology 34, no. 2 (January 2024): 235-244.e3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.11.033.
ISSN1879-0445
URLhttps://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/33991
Languageen_US
PublisherCurrent Biology
Keywordsconservation
Keywordshotspot
Keywordsforest fragment
Keywordsfull annual cycle
Keywordslandbird
Keywordsmigration
Keywordsprotected area
Keywordsradar ornithology
Keywordsseasonal difference
Keywordsstopover habitat
TitleSeasonal patterns and protection status of stopover hotspots for migratory landbirds in the eastern United States
TypeArticle
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