Data from: Evaluating staging habitat quality to advance the conservation of a declining migratory shorebird, Red Knot Calidris canutus ...

• Main Authors: Mu, Tong, Cai, Shangxiao, Peng, Hebo, Hassell, Chris J., Boyle, Adrian, Zhang, Zhengwang, Piersma, Theunis, Wilcove, David
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: Carrying capacity; red knot; Staging Site; habitat quality; Calidris canutus; migration; bird conservation; FOS: Biological sciences; Red Knot
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kkwh70s6z; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.kkwh70s6z

Identifying where and when population “bottlenecks” occur is critical to the conservation of migratory species, many of which are declining precipitously worldwide. Especially challenging is the evaluation of changes to staging sites. These sites are indispensable links in the migratory cycle but are typically used only briefly. We devised a field-based approach to assess the quality and carrying capacity of a critical staging site in Nanpu, China, for the declining, migratory Red Knot (Calidris canutus rogersi & C. c. piersmai) during northward migration. The Nanpu tidal flat supports 50,000-100,000 Red Knots annually, and while there, the knots feed almost exclusively on the bivalve Potamocorbula laevis. We simultaneously monitored changes in the abundance of Red Knots and bivalves across the entire staging site in spring 2018. After taking into account potential competition with other shorebird species, we estimated that the Nanpu tidal flat was capable of supporting approximately 1.46-1.70 times the ... : See README_Nanpu2018.txt ...