Extreme migratory connectivity and apparent mirroring of non-breeding grounds conditions in a severely declining breeding population of an Afro-Palearctic migratory bird.

Understanding the distribution of breeding populations of migratory animals in the non-breeding period (migratory connectivity) is important for understanding their response to environmental change. High connectivity (low non-breeding population dispersion) may lower resilience to climate change and increase vulnerability to habitat loss within their range. Very high levels of connectivity are reportedly rare, but this conclusion may be limited by methodology.

Rapid climate driven shifts in wintering distributions of three common waterbird species.

Climate change is predicted to cause changes in species distributions and several studies report margin range shifts in some species. However, the reported changes rarely concern a species' entire distribution and are not always linked to climate change. Here, we demonstrate strong north-eastwards shifts in the centres of gravity of the entire wintering range of three common waterbird species along the North-West Europe flyway during the past three decades.