insufficient for these populations. We found no evidence to suspect direct mortality of tropicbirds in regional fisheries, but overexploitation of small epipelagic fish and tuna may decrease feeding opportunities and lead to competition with fisheries. The substantial differences in foraging behaviour demonstrated by individuals from both colonies indicates that caution should be taken when extrapolating foraging patterns of tropical seabirds breeding in contrasting oceanographic environments.
The global long-term decline of migrant birds represents an important and challenging issue for conservation scientists and practitioners. This review draws together recent research directed at the Afro-Palaearctic flyway and considers its implications for conservation. The greatest advances in knowledge have been made in the field of tracking. These studies reveal many species to be highly dispersed in the non-breeding season, suggesting that site-level conservation at a small number of locations will almost certainly be of limited value for most species. Instead, widespread but 'shallow' land-sharing solutions are likely to be more effective but, because any local changes in Africa will affect many European populations, any impact will be extremely difficult to detect through monitoring in the breeding grounds. Targeted action to boost productivity in Europe may help to halt declines of some species but reversing declines for many species is also likely to require these 'shallow' land-sharing approaches in non-breeding areas. The retention or planting of native trees in the humid and arid zones within Africa may be a generic conservation tool, especially if planting is concentrated on favoured tree species. Overall, and despite a growing knowledge, we remain largely unable to progress beyond general flyway-level actions, such as maintaining suitable habitat across an increasingly anthropogenic landscape for generalists, targeted site-based conservation for specialists and at stop-over sites, protection of species from hunting, and individual species-level solutions. We remain unable to assess the cost-effectiveness of more specific conservation
The populations of Afro‐Palearctic migratory landbirds (breeding in Europe and overwintering in Africa) are declining and conservation efforts to halt or reverse their decline have failed to meet their targets. Yet, most studies and conservation measures focus on migratory landbirds’ breeding grounds, whereas knowledge about threats, drivers of their decline and conservation actions in their nonbreeding grounds, where they spend most of their annual cycle, is largely limited. Here, we provide a four‐step roadmap to integrate research, policy and actions for conserving Afro‐Palearctic migratory landbirds at a flyway scale: (1) assessing and monitoring population trends and defining priority species accordingly; (2) maximizing tracking data to identify important areas for the conservation of priority species; (3) conducting ground‐based studies on the nonbreeding grounds to identify conservation challenges; (4) implementing conservation measures, for the benefit of both the avifauna and the local human communities. Alongside these steps, international conventions may facilitate new collaborations across range‐states and institutions to engage diverse stakeholders and involve local communities, with particular emphasis on evidence‐based policymaking, law enforcement in addition to capacity strengthening and knowledge transfer of new technologies. This four‐step roadmap provides guidance for future work on Afro‐Palearctic migratory landbirds and will ultimately contribute to their conservation.
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