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| Migratory Bird Flyway | |
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| Name | Migratory Bird Flyway |
Migratory Bird Flyway
Migratory Bird Flyway describes the broad aerial corridors used by migratory birds during seasonal movements between breeding and non-breeding areas, linking major regions such as Arctic Council, Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, Scotland and Iberian Peninsula with stopover sites like East Asian–Australasian Flyway, Bering Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi River, East Atlantic Flyway and East Pacific Flyway; these routes are studied by institutions including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Wetlands International, BirdLife International, United States Fish and Wildlife Service and Canadian Wildlife Service. Research on flyways often involves collaborations among organizations such as the United Nations Environment Programme, Convention on Migratory Species, Ramsar Convention, International Union for Conservation of Nature and universities including University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, University of Alaska Fairbanks and Cornell University.
Flyways are conceptual frameworks used to describe seasonal migration patterns connecting regions like the Arctic tundra, Taiga belt, Great Plains (United States), Pantanal, Amazon Basin, Sahara Desert and East Asian wetlands; studies draw on historical records from explorers such as John James Audubon, Alexander von Humboldt, Georges Cuvier and policies shaped by treaties like the Migratory Bird Treaty (1916) and instruments associated with the League of Nations and later the United Nations. Scientists from institutes including the Smithsonian Institution, Max Planck Society, Natural History Museum, London and Australian Museum characterize flyways by geographic bottlenecks such as Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Strait of Gibraltar, Gulf of Finland and archipelagos like Aleutian Islands and Canary Islands, using data from projects led by European Union, National Science Foundation (United States), Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Major recognized flyways include the East Atlantic Flyway, Black Sea/Mediterranean Flyway, West Asian/East African Flyway, Central Asian Flyway, East Asian–Australasian Flyway, Pacific Americas Flyway, and Atlantic-linked routes such as the Mississippi Flyway and Atlantic Flyway (United States), which intersect regions administered by entities like European Commission, African Union, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, North Atlantic Treaty Organization and national agencies such as Environment and Climate Change Canada and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. These flyways traverse political units including Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, United States, Mexico, Canada, United Kingdom and Spain and include critical habitats like Wadden Sea, Chilka Lake, Crimean Peninsula, Okavango Delta, Gulf Coast (United States), Yellow Sea and Bengal Delta.
Flyways support ecosystem services by enabling nutrient transfer between biomes such as the Arctic, Boreal forest, Temperate grasslands of North America, Tropical Andes and Sub-Saharan savanna, with species-level links to taxa studied at museums like the American Museum of Natural History and universities such as University of California, Davis, University of Melbourne and Peking University. Migratory birds including species documented in works by Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Frank Chapman and lists maintained by International Ornithologists' Union perform functions from seed dispersal in the Amazon rainforest to predator-prey regulation in the Great Lakes (North America) and pollination in island systems like Galápagos Islands and Hawaii.
Flyways face threats from habitat loss driven by development projects linked to entities such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Investment Bank and national ministries in countries including China, India, Brazil and United States; other pressures include climate change documented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, invasive species case studies like Brown tree snake on Guam, pollution events such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill affecting Gulf of Mexico shorebirds, and hunting regulated variably under frameworks like the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and national laws in South Africa and Spain. Collisions with infrastructure owned by corporations including ExxonMobil, Iberdrola, Siemens, General Electric and Vattenfall—as well as disturbance from tourism promoted by agencies like UNESCO at sites such as Yellowstone National Park, Serengeti National Park and Bar-tailed Godwit staging areas—present complex management challenges.
International governance of flyways involves instruments and organizations such as the Convention on Migratory Species, Ramsar Convention, Bonn Convention, African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement, East Asian–Australasian Flyway Partnership, Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds and regional bodies including the European Union and Association of Southeast Asian Nations; national implementation engages agencies like Environment Canada, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ministry of Environment (China), BirdLife International partners and indigenous organizations recognized in documents from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Conservation financing and project management draw on mechanisms from the Global Environment Facility, Green Climate Fund, non-governmental organizations such as World Wide Fund for Nature, The Nature Conservancy and philanthropic funders including the Gates Foundation and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Monitoring relies on satellite telemetry developed by agencies like NASA, European Space Agency, JAXA, and academic groups at University of Oxford, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, University of Southampton and CSIC (Spain), employing technologies such as geolocators, GPS tags, eBird citizen science coordinated by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, radar networks used by UK Met Office and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and genetic tools advanced at institutions like Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Case studies highlight corridors such as the Yellow Sea staging grounds for species like the Red Knot (Calidris canutus), the Mississippi River Delta for Snowy Egret and Roseate Spoonbill, the East Asian–Australasian Flyway supporting Spoon-billed Sandpiper, the East Atlantic Flyway sustaining populations of Barnacle Goose and Common Crane, and transcontinental migrants such as the Arctic Tern, Bar-tailed Godwit, Swainson's Hawk and Whooping Crane; conservation successes and failures have been documented by organizations including BirdLife International, RSPB, Wetlands International and academic programs at University of Pretoria, University of Cape Town, University of São Paulo and Beijing Normal University.
Category:Bird migration