The Yellow Sea – a rapidly narrowing bottleneck for migrating shorebirds

Description

Webblog - The shrinking of mudflats along the coasts of the Chinese Yellow Sea is an increasing problem for birds trying to migrate between Siberia (for breeding) and Australia and New Zealand (for survival when not breeding). Research by an international team of ecologists from The Netherlands, Australia and China, led by the Chair in Global Flyway Ecology at the University of Groningen and staff member of Royal NIOZ, Theunis Piersma shows that three different species are in decline because of one common factor: loss of food and habitat along the coasts of the Yellow Sea, because of the still increasing losses of the fertile shallow foreshores, especially in China.