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Signals from the Wadden Sea: Population Declines Dominate Among Waterbirds Depending on Intertidal Mudflats

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Signals from the Wadden Sea: Population Declines Dominate Among Waterbirds Depending on Intertidal Mudflats Ocean & Coastal Management 68 (2012) 79e88 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Ocean & Coastal Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ocecoaman Signals from the Wadden sea: Population declines dominate among waterbirds depending on intertidal mudflats Marc van Roomen a,*, Karsten Laursen b, Chris van Turnhout a, Erik van Winden a, Jan Blew c, Kai Eskildsen d, Klaus Günther e, Bernd Hälterlein d, Romke Kleefstra a, Petra Potel f, Stefan Schrader g, Gerold Luerssen h, Bruno J. Ens a a SOVON Dutch Centre For Field Ornithology, P.O. Box 6521, 6503 GA Nijmegen, The Netherlands b Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Grenaavej 12, DK-8410 Roende, Denmark c BioConsult SH, Brinckmannstr. 31, 25813 Husum, Germany d Nationalparkverwaltung Schleswig-Holsteinisches Wattenmeer, Schlossgarten 1, D-25832 Tönning, Germany e Schutzstation Wattenmeer, Nationalpark-Haus, Hafenstrasse 3, D-25813 Husum, Germany f Nationalparkverwaltung Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer, Virchowstrasse 1, D-26382 Wilhelmshaven, Germany g Landesbetrieb für Küstenschutz, Nationalpark und Meeresschutz Schleswig-Holstein, Herzog-Adolf Strasse 1, D-25813 Husum, Germany h Common Wadden Sea Secretariat, Virchowstrasse 1, D-26382 Wilhemshaven, Germany article info abstract Article history: The Wadden Sea, shared by Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, is one of the world’s largest Available online 12 April 2012 intertidal wetlands. Waterbirds are an important element of the Wadden Sea ecosystem. By their migratory behaviour they connect the Wadden Sea with other sites, ranging from the arctic to the western seaboards of Europe and Africa, forming the East-Atlantic Flyway. The Joint Monitoring of Migratory Birds (JMMB) project of the Trilateral Monitoring and Assessment Program (TMAP) follows the changes in population size within the Wadden Sea. In this paper we describe and analyse population trends over the years 1991e2009 for 22 waterbird species using the Wadden Sea in internationally important numbers and depending on intertidal mudflats. Population declines predominated in this 18- year period. More populations decreased in Schleswig-Holstein and Niedersachsen than in The Netherlands and Denmark. This is the case particularly for species feeding on polychaetes. In contrast, waterbirds feeding on bivalves are in decline in all regions except Denmark. On the finer spatial scale of tidal basins, these patterns in trends are still apparent, although much variation in trend directions exists within the Dutch Wadden Sea, especially in bivalve specialists. For those species for which we could compare the trend in the Wadden Sea with the trend of their entire flyway population, we found that the former were more negative. This finding and the contrasting trends between regions and tidal basins within the Wadden Sea suggest that causes of the population changes are to be sought within the Wadden Sea itself. These causes, which may act in combination, could be related to factors operating within the Wadden Sea only or with factors operating on a larger scale but having an intensified or differentiated effect within the Wadden Sea. Interestingly, the Wadden Sea regions where negative trends of benthivorous waterbirds predominate are characterized by a large tidal amplitude, whereas areas where bird numbers have generally increased are characterized by a small tidal amplitude. An inventory of possible causes indicated climate change, eutrophication, shellfish fisheries, invasive species and increasing numbers of avian predators as the most important candidates to be investigated further to explain the observed trends. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The Wadden Sea, shared by Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, constitutes one of the world’s largest intertidal wetlands, providing a wide range of ecosystem services and sup- * Corresponding author. porting many conservation interests (Marencic and De Vlas, 2009). E-mail address: [email protected] (M. van Roomen). It is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site (for the 0964-5691/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2012.04.004 80 M. van Roomen et al. / Ocean & Coastal Management 68 (2012) 79e88 Netherlands and Germany), Natura 2000 site and a site of inter- 2. Material and methods national importance under the Ramsar convention. It is managed according to the trilateral Wadden Sea Plan (WSP), which provides 2.1. Study site and species selection a coordinated framework for the management principles and the implementation of national and international legislation. Biolog- The Wadden Sea is a large (14,700 km2) shallow tidal wetland, ical, environmental and socio-economic parameters are monitored containing more than 4500 km2 of soft-sediment flats that emerge within the Trilateral Monitoring and Assessment Program (TMAP) twice a day during low tide (Laursen et al., 2010). Large numbers of to provide baseline information for policy and management. waterbirds use these tidal flats for foraging and roost on nearby salt- Despite strong legal protection and many management measures marshes, polders and islands during high-tide. In this paper we being in place, conflicts between human use and conservation distinguish four regions within the Wadden Sea: Denmark, Schleswig- interests occur on a regular basis. At the same time, scientists Holstein and Niedersachsen/Hamburg (both being part of Germany) disagree on the main drivers affecting this ecosystem (Philippart and The Netherlands (Fig.1). Secondly, tidal basins are distinguished to et al., 2007; Eriksson et al., 2010). calculate trends at smaller spatial scales (based on Kraft et al., 2011;see Waterbirds constitute a visible and important element of the Fig. 1). A tidal basin comprises those areas that are influenced by the Wadden Sea ecosystem (Meltofte et al., 1994; Van de Kam et al., tide from one specific tidal inlet, so form a geographical unit influ- 2004). The international designations of the Wadden Sea are enced by the same hydrodynamic and geomorphological factors. largely based on its significance for migratory waterbirds. At least The analyses in this paper focus on 22 waterbird species 52 populations of 41 species, breeding from Canada in the west to occurring in internationally important numbers in the Wadden Sea Siberia in the east and wintering along the western coasts of Europe and largely depending on the macrobenthos of intertidal flats and Africa, use the Wadden Sea in internationally important (Table 1). The Common Eider is included in this selection as well, as numbers (defined as the regular occurrence of 1% or more of their it depends on the same macrofauna although largely from the flyway or biogeographical population; Wetlands International, sublitoral. Calculations of maximum numbers in the Wadden Sea 2006) during longer or shorter parts of their annual cycle and their international importance are based on Laursen et al. (Meltofte et al., 1994). Systematic counts of waterbirds have been (2010). For species with more than one flyway population using conducted since the 1960s in the various Wadden Sea countries the Wadden Sea, numbers for the population for which the Wadden (Smit and Wolff, 1981). Since the beginning of the 1990’s these Sea has the highest international importance was used. counts are coordinated within the Joint Monitoring of Migratory Birds (JMMB) project within TMAP (Rösner, 1993). Since its incep- 2.2. Waterbird counts and trend analyses tion, the JMMB has made much progress, allowing meaningful analyses and comparisons of trends (Blew et al., 2007; Laursen Counts of numbers of waterbirds on high-tide roosts are used to et al., 2010). Nowadays, trends for 34 waterbird species are upda- calculate population trends as collected with the JMMB project (see ted annually (JMMB, 2010). The monitoring project has mainly Rösner, 1993; Blew et al., 2007 and Laursen et al., 2010 for details). a signalling function, needed for the assessment of the conservation Three types of counts are used in the present analyses: 1) simul- status of the species of interest. Secondly, waterbirds are also taneous total counts covering all high-tide roosts of all waterbird excellent indicators of changes in the habitats they frequent, species (two counts a year are organised on the trilateral level, because of their high position in the food chain (Furness and involving 688 counting units, and up to three additional counts on Greenwood, 1993). regional level), 2) frequent counts (at least once a month) of all In this paper we present and analyse population trends since waterbird species in a selection of 163 counting units, 3) dedicated 1991 of those waterbird species that depend on intertidal mudflats aerial counts of Common Eiders in the total Wadden Sea in January for their feeding. Intertidal mudflats are the main feeding habitat (Laursen et al., 2010). for a large proportion of the waterbird species in the Wadden Sea. Trend analyses are performed on yearly indices for the total The year 1991 is taken as the starting year because this season Wadden Sea, separate regions or tidal basins. Yearly indices are marks an all-time low in the abundance of bivalves, particularly based on monthly averages, being the sum of numbers counted Mussels Mytilus edulis, in the Wadden Sea (Ens, 2006; Kristensen plus numbers estimated for units with missing counts in JulyeJune and Borgstrøm, 2006; Nehls et al., 2009a). Mussels and the beds divided by 12. The use of 12 months in these
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