Tracking the Stejneger's stonechat Saxicola stejnegeri along the East Asian–Australian Flyway from Japan via China to southeast Asia

Yuichi Yamaura,Yuzo Fujimaki,Simeon Lisovski,Masayuki Senzaki,Futoshi Nakamura,Kazuhiro Kawamura,Heiko Schmaljohann

doi:10.1111/jav.01054

Abstract

The East Asian–Australian Flyway spans from north Asia to Australia and is the world's richest birds' flyway because it involves > 40% of global migratory bird species. However, information is lacking on individual migratory routes and non‐breeding grounds for small land birds using this flyway. Here, we present the first migration tracks of the songbird Stejneger's stonechat Saxicola stejnegeri from this part of the world using light‐level geolocators. This species depends on grasslands during the entire annual cycle and was captured and equipped with tracking devices in Hokkaido, northern Japan. All individuals traveled through southern Primorye or eastern Heilongjiang (Russia/China) before flying southward via central China toward their major non‐breeding grounds in southeast Asia (China, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam). Individual stonechats spent 42–70 d en route during their autumn migration. Both the major non‐breeding grounds and the stopover sites are likely to pose challenges to the persistence of this species, because these habitats are currently degraded and will likely be lost in the near future due to intensified agriculture and the establishment of permanent croplands. Moreover, the areas used by Stejneger's stonechat during migration largely overlapped with illegal trapping areas in northeastern China.

Highlights

The East Asian–Australian Flyway is the most species-rich flyway in the world, hosting Ͼ 40% of global migratory bird species (Yong et al 2015)
Most stonechats departed from Hokkaido during early October and migrated to the continent and stopped over in the southern Primorye or eastern Heilongjiang areas (Fig. 1, 2)
The first snowfall can occur in lowland Hokkaido within the month of October (Sapporo Meteorological Observatory: < www.jma-net.go.jp/sapporo/index.html >), and most plants in grasslands wither and associated arthropods disappear in October (Yamaura et al unpubl.)

Summary

Introduction

The East Asian–Australian Flyway is the most species-rich flyway in the world, hosting Ͼ 40% of global migratory bird species (Yong et al 2015). The migration routes and non-breeding grounds of these species are completely unknown, those of the entire suite of small migratory land birds (Yong et al 2015, but see Koike et al 2016). We identified the migratory routes, migration stopover sites, and major non-breeding grounds of 12 Stejneger’s stonechats breeding. Their stopover sites and major non-breeding grounds would be essential information to the effective conservation of migratory songbirds in the Far East. This would allow us to attribute population dynamics to their migration routes, timing, and major non-breeding grounds

Methods

Results

Conclusion