Mercury contamination is an invisible threat to declining migratory shorebirds along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway

Exposure to pollutants is a potentially crucial but overlooked driver of population declines in shorebirds along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. We combined knowledge of moult strategy and life history with a standardised sampling protocol to assess mercury (Hg) contamination in 984 individuals across 33 migratory shorebird species on an intercontinental scale. Over one-third of the samples exceeded toxicity benchmarks. Feather Hg was best explained by moulting region, while habitat preference (coastal obligate vs. non-coastal obligate), the proportion of invertebrates in the diet and foraging strategy (foraging mostly on the surface vs. at depth) also contributed, but was less pronounced. Feather Hg was substantially higher in South China (Mai Po and Lai Chi Wo), and the Yellow Sea region, than in breeding and Arctic migratory regions (Tringa genus) frequently encountered in freshwater habitats were at the highest risk. It is important to continue and expand biomonitoring research to assess how other pollutants might affect shorebirds.

Yanju Ma, Chi-Yeung Choi, Lihai Shang, Marcel Klaassen, Zhijun Ma, Qing Chang, Veerle L. B. Jaspers, Qingquan Bai, Tao He, Katherine K.-S. Leung, Chris J. Hassell, Roz Jessop, Luke Gibson