Journal article
Migratory connectivity magnifies the consequences of habitat loss from sea-level rise for shorebird populations
T Iwamura, HP Possingham, I Chadès, C Minton, NJ Murray, DI Rogers, EA Treml, RA Fuller
Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society | Published : 2013
Abstract
Sea-level rise (SLR) will greatly alter littoral ecosystems, causing habitat change and loss for coastal species. Habitat loss is widely used as a measurement of the risk of extinction, but because many coastal species are migratory, the impact of habitat loss will depend not only on its extent, but also on where it occurs. Here, we develop a novel graph-theoretic approach to measure the vulnerability of a migratory network to the impact of habitat loss from SLR based on population flow through the network. We show that reductions in population flow far exceed the proportion of habitat lost for 10 long-distance migrant shorebirds using the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. We estimate that SLR..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council Linkage
Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank Doug Watkins, Chris Hassell, Ken Gosbell, Mark Barter, Heather Gibbs, Golo Maurer, Adrian Boyle, and Jutta Leyrer for helping to define the graphs representing migratory connectivity. Mark Barter and Heather Gibbs sadly passed away during the preparation of this manuscript and we dedicate it to their memory. Financial support was provided by Australian Research Council Linkage grant no. LP100200418, a Future Fellowship to R.A.F., a Federation Fellowship to H.P.P., the Queensland Wader Study Group, the Department of Environment and Resource Management (Queensland), the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, and the Port of Brisbane.