Trends in population dynamics of migratory shorebirds in Australia

Introduction

Many migratory shorebird populations continue to decline worldwide, reflecting compounding pressures across their breeding, staging, and non‑breeding grounds. However, in recent years, some species have shown more stable population sizes. Understanding how survival varies through time is essential for diagnosing the drivers of these declines and recently observed stability for some species. Such information can then aid in identifying where conservation interventions can be most effective.

This site presents a suite of species‑level survival analyses based on long‑term banding and resighting data Using Cormack-Jolly-Seber models, we estimate temporal trends of population dynamics across 12 different shorebird species for which enough data has been collected in Australia.

This overview is generated using capture and resighting data from the VWSG, AWSG, QWSG, and the Global Flyway Network, curated in BirdMark. For species where sufficient data is available, minimal age overviews and variations in juvenile percentages over the years are calculated and provided.

Some notes to keep in mind when reviewing the data:

data include all birds originally banded as adults, immatures or juveniles. An immature bird is one that has lost its juvenile plumage (within first year of life), but is still yet to make its first northward migration.
a year/season for each bird runs from August 1- July 31 the next year.
it presents conservative age overviews (e.g. a bird aged 2+ upon banding was assumed to be 2 years of age).
the data has been rather conservatively filtered for obvious errors in observations.

Please note, this overview page and following species profiles are not set up viewing on mobile devices.

Trends in population dynamics of migratory shorebirds in Australia

Introduction

Species Index