Pollution in the coastal wetlands of East Asia: Cascading effects from littoral macroinvertebrates to migrating shorebirds

Globally, coastal ecosystems are undergoing rapid changes with respect
to habitat degradation and pollution, which is especially true along the
East Asian coastline due to rapid industrial and urban development. This
has led to effects on coastal wetlands in terms of biodiversity and also on
the quality of the stopover sites for migrating birds, such as shorebirds.
Shorebird populations are declining at an alarming rate along the East Asian
Australasian flyway, the reasons for which are mostly unknown. Besides
habitat degradation, pollution is suspected to play a role in these declines.
One way that pollutants might decrease survival during migration may be
through effects on the immune system that can affect the susceptibility to
infectious diseases. Pollution has indeed been related to the outbreaks
and increase in infectious disease as early as the 1960s in both animals,
including birds, and humans. In this project, we aim to study the impact of
pollution in combination with food availability and infections on migrating shorebirds, with a specific focus on pollution picked up in Chinese coastal wetlands used as stop-over sites during migration.

The project will be the first to study the combined impact of pollution and
infections on the decline of migratory shorebirds. As there is no currently no
information on this, the results of the project will bring scientific renewal and
will help inform conservation and risk management measures for important
stop-over ecosystems. The project will provide new generic knowledge
about the effects of pollution on migratory birds, and the results will thus
also provide important knowledge to Norwegian authorities for sustainable
management of bird populations that have migratory routes along the
Norwegian coast.

Globally, coastal ecosystems are undergoing rapid changes with respect
to habitat degradation and pollution, which is especially true along the
East Asian coastline due to rapid industrial and urban development. This
has led to effects on coastal wetlands in terms of biodiversity and also on
the quality of the stopover sites for migrating birds, such as shorebirds.
Shorebird populations are declining at an alarming rate along the East Asian
Australasian flyway (EAAF), the reasons for which are currently unknown.
The role of pollution in these declines, which is unknown, is suspected to
play a role. One way that pollutants might decrease survival during migration
may be via immunomodulative properties that can affect the susceptibility
to disease. Pollution has indeed been related to the outbreaks of disease
and increase in disease as early as the 1960s in animals, including birds,
and humans. In this study, we aim to study the impact of pollution on
the biodiversity of littoral macroinvertebrates in coastal wetlands in East
Asia, and the resulting combined impact of food availability, pollution
and disease on migrating shorebirds using these wetlands as stop-over
sites. The potential combined impact of pollution and resultant disease on
the fitness and decline of shorebirds has been neglected until now. The
proposed project will pioneer investigations into the combined impact of
pollution and disease on the decline of migratory shorebirds along the EAAF,
with a specific focus on pollution picked up along the Chinese coastline
during migration. As there is no information on the impact of pollution (in
combination with other stressors e.g. lack of food, disease and high energetic
demands during migration) on migratory shorebirds along the EAAF, nor in
other flyways (e.g. the East-Atlantic Flyway), the results of the project will
bring scientific renewal and will inform conservation and risk management
measures for important stop-over ecosystems.