Migrant animals induce seasonal ecological impacts on resident communities and ecosystem processes through trophic (energy fluxes as prey and predator) and transport (seeds, parasites, pathogens, nutrients) effects. Understanding and quantifying such impacts is a major issue in the ecological research agenda.
This project will focus on an avian migratory system at a large geographical scale: shorebirds in the East Atlantic Flyway (EAF). Migratory shorebirds link disparate communities over the world, being key predators in most coastal areas. We aim to (1) build a thorough understanding on the role of migrants in the structure and functioning of food webs in tidal environments within the EAF, (2) assess migratory connectivity and key parameters of migratory strategies of shorebirds in the EAF and (3) predict the consequences of trophic downgrading, simulating a scenario of potential shorebird loss, on the studied ecosystems.
