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In this expedition from 3 to 13 October 2022 we visited the most important areas for wintering Black-tailed Godwits in southern Spain. Our aim was to resight individual colour marked birds, describe the habitats used by godwits and to gain information on threats and opportunities by field observations and meetings with local experts. In this report we present a daily overview of our findings with photos, locations we visited, numbers present and the first conclusions and recommendations.

In this expedition from 1 to 26 February 2022 we visited the most important areas for Black-tailed Godwits in southern Spain and Portugal during northward migration. Our aim was to resight individual colour marked birds, describe the habitats godwits used and to gain information on threats and opportunities by field observations and meetings with local experts. In this report we present a daily overview of our findings with photos, locations we visited, numbers present and the first conclusions and recommendations.

Comparative study

Dit onderzoek werd in 2021 gefinancierd door het Ministerie van LNV, Vogelbescherming Nederland, Provincie Fryslân, EU LIFE IP GrassBirdHabitats en Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Het bouwt voort op de onderzoekinvesteringen in 2004-2019 door het Ministerie van LNV, het Ministerie van Economische Zaken, de Provincie Fryslân, de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) vanwege de TOP-subsidie ‘Shorebirds in space’ en de Spinoza Premie 2014 aan T. Piersma, en door bijdragen van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Vogelbescherming-Nederland en Wereld Natuur Fonds aan de leerstoel Trekvogelecologie aan de RuG, grote investeringen van anonieme donoren, het Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds, en door bijdragen van het Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds (via It Fryske Gea) en de Van der Hucht De Beukelaar Stichting. In dit jaarverslag presenteren we de achtergrond van ons onderzoek en een overzicht van de voorlopige resultaten van de monitoring van de gruttopopulatie, predatoren en alternatieve prooien, insecten, bodemleven en landgebruik in 2021 en/of voorgaande jaren. We beschrijven de inzichten en ideeën die we daaruit halen voor verdere analyse van de data en toekomstig onderzoek. Let op dat het hier gaat om voorlopige bevindingen en dat de variatie in veel gevallen nog statistisch moeten worden getoetst. Kortom, dat deze resultaten nog lang niet definitief zijn. We lichten in ons jaarverslag een tipje van de sluier op van wat we tot nu toe hebben waargenomen en voor de statistische onderbouwing verwijzen we u naar onze peer-reviewed verschenen (zie paragraaf 4.1) en nog te verschijnen artikelen.

All through the spring staging period of 2021, (flocks of) Black-tailed Godwits were monitored in Parque Natural de l’Albufera, southeast of Valencia. We recorded resightings of individual birds, counted as well as sampled the flocks. In this report a daily overview is presented with photos, locations which were visited, turnover rates and site fidelity of the colour ringed godwits.

Steeds opnieuw klinkt in de Kamer en in de media twijfel aan de wetenschappelijke basis van het stikstofplan. Han Olff, Wim de Vries en 34 andere wetenschappers* leggen nog maar eens uit hoe het zit.

Coastal systems store enormous carbon quantities in their sediment, which originates from various autochthonous and allochthonous sources. Carbon fluxes in coastal ecosystems have a strong effect on the recipient food-webs and carbon emission offsets. Yet, the relative importance of autochthonous vs. allochthonous C inputs to coastal carbon budget is still challenging to identify. Here, we combine diatoms preserved in the sediment with geochemical analyses to identify the sources of carbon stored in Africa’s largest intertidal seagrass beds at Banc d’Arguin, Mauritania. The area lies between an active ocean upwelling and the ‘Sahara-dust hotspot’ systems. The extensive seagrass beds of the area are thus expected toreceive C from these neighboring systems in addition to producing C in-situ. Three sediment cores (50 cm) were collected at three intertidal sites with different hydrodynamic regimes, and analyzed for diatom composition, total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), and carbon isotopic signatures (δ13C). Diatom taxa are grouped into three guilds: (1) benthic (epiphyte, epipelon, and epipsammon), (2) planktonic, and (3) freshwater. Benthic diatoms are considered to be autochthonous, while typical oceanic and freshwater diatoms are considered to be allochthonous. Benthic diatoms are the most diverse and abundant group, while allochthonous freshwater (i.e., dust imported) and typical upwelling (i.e., tidal imported) taxa ranked last in both abundance and species’ richness. Structure equation modelling shows that variation in the stored carbon is best explained by the total abundance of diatoms and guild composition. We conclude that the C stored in the intertidal seagrass beds of Banc d’Arguin is predominantly autochthonous. Our method provides an effective way to identify historical carbon sources in coastal systems.

In the context of Article 3.1 of the compatibility law 2016 (Comptabiliteitswet) (CW 2016), which aims to bring about more scientific underpinning of policy, the House of Representatives in 2019 examined the extent to which policy proposals address the efficiency and effectiveness of the policy instruments to be deployed (Sneller & Snels, 2019). They concluded that while they often address how these instruments should contribute to the objective, they often do not address to what extent. Making such statements about efficiency and effectiveness requires an understanding of scientific evidence. As a result, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) anticipates that they will receive more frequent questions from the government about what science says about the effectiveness of proposed policies. PBL already has a strong scientific orientation in its work and recognizes the great importance of a request for scientific foundation. But is also foresees that answering this type of question about scientific evidence for policy proposals can be difficult in practice. This is due to the short period in which these questions must generally be answered on the one hand and the time required for (systematic) literature review on the other. Conducting a (systematic) literature search using artificial intelligence (AI) could offer a solution to this problem and that is what this report is about. When using AI, the literature search is supported by a so-called learning algorithm, which learns as the process progresses to better and better assess what is relevant literature for the researcher. However, little experience has been gained with the use of such software in policy-oriented research. PBL therefore asked the UG to investigate how the open-source AI software ASReview could offer a solution in efficiently meeting the demand for scientific insights from the government. At PBL's request, the UG researched three substantive questions around the effectiveness of policy instruments for sustainable agriculture and used these to test the process of the AI supported literature review. In this research, the UG worked with a combination of AI-supported literature screening and sounding boards of academics who fed the search at the beginning and interpreted the results substantively at the end. Such a sounding board enables the distillation of substantive lessons in a relatively short time. The findings are: 1. It is possible to conduct a quick and good systematic literature search by combining AI-supported literature search with a sounding board of scientific experts. The search for scientific insights that could potentially provide substantiation yielded a database of 40.000 potentially relevant papers, from which a diverse set of 100 relevant papers were selected using AI. Using the sounding board of experts, an even smaller set of 12 papers was created from this list that were deemed most urgent for policymakers to study. 2. Because the AI software ASReview puts content first and hides reputation of authors and journals during screening, objectivity and breadth is stimulated; 3. However, ASReview does present other challenges that, if not taken into account, can compromise the objectivity of research in other ways; i) One of the main risks of using ASReview is what we call ‘trap formation’, especially when there is a short time frame for screening. This means that you end up on a particular 'track' of articles on a particular (sub)topic, which means that other also relevant articles are not found. The broader the query and the less time, the more this poses a risk to the efficiency and reliability of the screening. By using certain settings for the screening, this can be taken into account to a certain extent. ii) The amount of efficiency gains that can be achieved with ASReview depends on the breadth and multidisciplinarity of the research question. The topic of sustainable agriculture has many facets, both in terms of instruments and outcomes. This makes it more difficult for the program to quickly learn what is most relevant, so screening will take more time; iii) AI is not a fully automated process. Use of the program requires skill from the researcher to drive the algorithm and expert knowledge to start the process and expert knowledge to interpret the results. 4. The content of this research has resulted in two sets of scientific articles: a Top 100 and a Top 12. 5. The first end result of the Systematic Review is a list (Top 100) of relevant articles ranked by their "scientific recognition." Here, because of the requirement for speed in the process, scientific recognition is simply operationalized as a combination of the number of citations of the article per year and the impact factor of the journal (as a measure of the seriousness of the blind review process) in which they were published. While there are caveats to this method of ranking, it does provide a way to make a large amount of knowledge manageable within a relatively short period of time, and in doing so, gives policymakers and researchers a foothold that they can study "the most important first''. 6. The second end result is a selection from the top 100 by the scientific experts: which ones are most important for policy? The six multi-disciplinary scholars each selected three papers that they felt were most important for policymakers and researchers to take to task: combined, this yielded a set of 12 articles. The Top 12 is a manageable set of articles that was selected quickly, and can be studied in content in a short period of time while being largely systematic. 7. In conclusion. What does the process tested here offer compared to what we might call "the standard quick search for scientific evidence" of a PBL staff member? This search often consists of manually consulting Google Scholar and/or individually contacting a scientific expert. Compared to manual searches via Scholar, searching the literature with ASReview offers the opportunity to systematically review a vast amount of studies for relevance. After each selection by the researcher, the entire database is reordered. Ultimately, it has been shown, this leads to a greater diversity of studies than a manual search process. Compared to contacting experts individually, the added value of utilizing a group of experts in this study is not only their diversity of expertise, but also that they all reflect on the same scientific dataset and choose from it (quickly and rationally) the most relevant ones for policy. This is a much more systematic process than asking for their scientific views separately.

Eutrophication causes tremendous losses to seagrass around the globe. The effects of nutrient loading vary along environmental gradients, and wave forces especially are expected to affect meadow stability, nutrient status, and responses to nutrient supply. Here, we surveyed the pristine subtropical intertidal seagrass system of Banc d’Arguin, Mauritania, to characterise Zostera noltii in terms of morphology (biomass allocation, leaf length and area, rhizome internode length), nutrient content (carbon: C, nitrogen: N, phosphorus: P, iron: Fe, aluminium: Al), and patterns in δ13C and δ15N across a wide gradient of hydrodynamic conditions. We subsequently assessed temporal variability in seagrass stability and nutrient fluxes, as well as responses to experimental fertilisation (pulses of + N, + P, + N + P) on three meadows representing different degrees of wave-force (exposed, intermediate and sheltered). The large-scale survey revealed a marked increase in N and P limitation with increasing wave energy. The overall low leaf %N (1.74 ± 0.04; mean ± se) and N:P ratio (8.67 ± 0.14) suggests that the area is N-limited. Seasonal variation in seagrass cover and biomass showed the exposed site to be the most stable and the sheltered site the least. Variation in δ15N signatures indicates seasonal shifts in N sources at the exposed site only. Fertilisation with + N and + N + P induced seagrass mortality at the exposed site, while at the sheltered site it was + P that degraded seagrass. Collectively, our results indicate that with increasing wave forces, the degree of stability of seagrass beds increases, but nutrient limitation and vulnerability to eutrophication increase as well.

Dit onderzoek werd in 2020 gefinancierd door het Ministerie van LNV, Vogelbescherming Nederland, Provincie Fryslân, Wageningen University & Research, EU LIFE IP GrassBirdHabitats, EIS Kenniscentrum Insecten en Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Het bouwt voort op de onderzoekinvesteringen in 2004-2019 door het Ministerie van LNV, het Ministerie van Economische Zaken, de Provincie Fryslân, de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) vanwege de TOP-subsidie ‘Shorebirds in space’ en de Spinoza Premie 2014 aan T. Piersma, en door bijdragen van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Vogelbescherming-Nederland en Wereld Natuur Fonds aan de leerstoel Trekvogelecologie aan de RuG, een anonieme donor, en het Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds. Mede mogelijk gemaakt door een subsidie in 2006 van het Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds (via It Fryske Gea) en bijdragen van de Van der Hucht De Beukelaar Stichting. De pilot met Diopsis cameravallen voor insectenmonitoring is mogelijk gemaakt door financiële ondersteuning van het Wereld Natuur Fonds (FY20-22), dat eerder ook al bijdroeg aan de ontwikkeling van de software rond de Diopsis camera.

This repository contains data for the paper: Seasonal changes in the presence and body size of brown shrimp Crangon crangon on intertidal flats in the western Dutch Wadden Sea, 1984-2018. By: Emma Penning1,2, Laura L. Govers1,2, Rob Dekker1, Theunis Piersma1,2 1NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Department of Coastal Systems, P.O. Box 59, 1790 AB Den Burg, Texel, The Netherlands 2Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, P.O. Box 11103, 9700 CC Groningen, The Netherlands Submitted to journal: Marine Biology Time series data of shrimp monitoring and sea water temperature are found in separate files.

This repository contains data for the paper: Advancing presence and changes in body size of brown shrimp Crangon crangon on intertidal flats in the western Dutch Wadden Sea, 1984-2018 By: Emma Penning1,2, Laura L. Govers1,2, Rob Dekker1, Theunis Piersma1,2 1NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Department of Coastal Systems, P.O. Box 59, 1790 AB Den Burg, Texel, The Netherlands 2Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, P.O. Box 11103, 9700 CC Groningen, The Netherlands Published in journal: Marine Biology (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-021-03967-z) Time series data of shrimp monitoring, sea water temperatures and water height data are found in separate files.

he Rudi Drent Chair in Global Flyway Ecology at the University of Groningen has contributed significantly to waterbirds conservation worldwide. The team conducted cutting-edge and high impact science to inform decision makers and the wider public on the status of many flyways across the globe as well as the challenges and solutions. Over the last year, the Chair and his team published more than 32 publications, of which 26 are peer-reviewed. The Chair gave more than 18 presentations to audiences of all backgrounds and hierarchies. Our twitter account (4172 followers) received over the reported year 4.3 million ‘impressions’ and 81,000 profile visits. In addition, the Chair continued the battle for the protection of shorebirds and their habitats at the national and international media via constant outreaches and influential tweets. At the scientific frontier, the team continue expanding the PhD and research network of people working on flyways globally. Special attention has been given to students that are less fortunate such as in West Africa and southeast Asia. At the issue of habitat management, the Chair kept trying to close the gap between science, managers and local stakeholders. The Chair and his team continue to strive to provide a platform of trust where all involved find themselves respected. Clearly, building on the organizational strengthening and the immense outreach achieved, it is becoming urgent that new and hopefully longer-term funding will be established.

The benthic communities of soft-sediment intertidal ecosystems trophically underpin the migration of birds and fish. Within the East Atlantic Flyway, along the coast of West-Africa, the intertidal mudflats of Banc d’Arguin, Mauritania, host over 2 million migratory waterbirds. Despite the protected status of the Banc d’Arguin, geographical remoteness and seemingly benign human exploitation, we show that large changes have taken place in the intertidal benthic macrofauna across an interval of 28 years. We compared the results of two comparable and spatially comprehensive large-scale benthic surveys in 1986 and 2014. Over this time, the benthos changed from a diverse community to one dominated by a few species of bivalve, with a loss of polychaete worms. The change was associated with a twofold increase in the seagrass cover. Our results suggest that the intertidal habitats of Banc d’Arguin have altered markedly over the last three decades and the estimated benthic secondary production has decreased by a factor of four. These shifts in community structure and production may have contributed to declines in some benthivorous migratory shorebirds.

This report addresses the activities of the Rudi Drent Chair in Global Flyway Ecolog y carried out between July 2019 –July 2020. The Global Flyway Ecology Chair was established at the University of Groningen (RUG) in May 2012 in a covenant of RUG with BirdLife Netherlands (VBN) and World Wildlife Fund Netherlands (WNF). In 2018, at the initiative of the Faculty of Science and Engineering of RUG, the Chair was named Rudi Drent Chair in Global Flyway Ecology, in recognition to the distinguished work of Prof. Rudi Drent for global flyway research and conservation. From 2019, the Rudi Drent Chair also receives support from Triodos Foundation. The Chair has continued working around the globe under the international umbrella of the Global Flyway Network (GFN). The Rudi Drent Chair would not have achieved the current level of work without a strong support from the above - mentioned institutions as well as an exceptional multidisciplined and multi-national team that work closely with the Chair. Special thanks to Yvonne Verkuil who assisted the Chair since the start, to Bastiaan Blaauw for building and maintaining one of the most outstanding and viewer - friendly online bird tracking websites “https://www.globalflywaynetwork.org/”, and to Joke Bakker (RUG) and Joyce Rietveld (RUG) for their significant help in keeping the book of the various activities. We are also grateful for the many contributions of Tienke Koning, who helped the Chair at many fronts.

Shorebirds are major, but thus far under-acknowledged, players in mudflat food webs and associated physio-chemical processes. Mud is a critical habitat type for shorebirds, offering a multi-dimensional matrix of feeding opportunities through space and time. Shorebirds have evolved a spectrum of foraging modes with associated morphologies, and sensory and physiological adaptations which exploit these foraging opportunities. Although shorebirds are mud specialists and sentinels of mudflat ecosystem functioning, they have not yet been well integrated into the “mud club”. In this chapter, we highlight the key roles shorebirds play in food webs, and in physical and chemical processes within mudflat ecosystems. We illustrate how shorebird distribution and behaviour provides a mirror of mudflat ecology because their foraging behaviour reflects the underlying ecological conditions, including temporal and spatial patterns in food/community structure in and across mud. In particular, shorebirds may be important indicators of essential fatty acid production by diatoms in epibenthic biofilm fields covering muddy intertidal flats, especially in estuaries. We conclude by highlighting the major challenges facing shorebirds today and call for a paradigm shift in shorebird conservation, based on recreating and restoring intertidal mud ecosystems.

Includes Text S1 (Knot husbandry), Text S2 (Gizzard and pectoral muscle mass measurements), Text S3 (Model implementation procedures), Table S1 (Age- and year-specific covariance matrices) and Table S2 (RMA slopes)

Niemand zal het belang van regenwormen voor een ecosysteem ontkennen. Ten eerste omdat ze een belangrijke rol vervullen in de nutriëntencyclus en voor de bodemstructuur, maar ten tweede omdat ze ook voor andere organismen de leefomstandigheden verbeteren of als voedselbron dienen. In het boerenland zijn het vooral de rode regenwormen die deze functies vervullen. In het huidige reguliere boerenland staat deze groep wormen juist onder druk. Door de omstandigheden voor rode regenwormen te verbeteren, kunnen andere soorten hier ook van profiteren.

Internationale ecologische kennis die de landbouw in Zuidwest-Friesland met biodiversiteit verbindt / Harvesting international ecological knowledge to connect farming practices in the southwest of Friesland with biodiversity

Overview of authorsâ proof corrections. (DOCX 27 kb)

gridnorthusedbtg.txt: Grid of nodes and connections used for the simulations that simulate the flight duration of Northward Sahara Crossings. Associated wind-data for the different nodes can be downloaded via the ECMWF-Interim database.gridsouthusedbtg.txt: Grid of nodes and connections used for the simulations that simulate the flight duration of Southward Sahara Crossings. Associated wind-data for the different nodes can be downloaded via the ECMWF-Interim database.Information_All_Individuals.xlsx: File containing all individual information that are needed to perform simulations (Departure date; Departing Node; Departing Location; Arriving Node; Arriving Location; Died/Survived).ResightingChance.xlsx: File including all data needed to calculate the annual resighting probability for tagged birds that were alive.

All supplemental information

Contains tables S1, S2, S3, S4 and figure S1.

Expedition report

Compleet Nederlandstalig handboek dat alle steltlopers van Europa beschrijft. Het voorwoord is geschreven door Theunis Piersma. Acherin vindt u informatie over Global Flyway Network (GFN) en de International Wader Study Group (IWSG).

Book review for: Prins H.H.T & Namgail T. (eds) 2017. Bird migration across the Himalayas. Wetland functioning amidst mountains and glaciers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 440 pp. ISBN 978-1-107-11471-5.

Prum, R.O. 2017. Book review

This is the report of an initiative to evaluate the results and methodology of all shorebird counts of the Banc d’Arguin in Mauritania. This was done by means of a workshop with all participants of the 2017 count expedition and a selection of researchers in the area, and an analysis of the 2017 census in the perspective of previous censuses. The goals of this initiative were (a) to gain more knowledge on the (causes of) temporal dynamics in the shorebird numbers at Banc d’Arguin, (b) to discuss the optimal design for future shorebird monitoring of the Banc d’Arguin, and (c) to improve the collaboration between all involved parties. Total bird numbers have been declining since the first complete census in 1980 (2,384,000 birds) with 1,725,000 birds counted in the 2017 census, a slightly higher total estimate than the previous census in 2014 (1,459,000 birds). All seven total censuses combined showed a significant temporal linear trend for six species (all negative, expect for one). For all other species, the data proved insufficient to determine temporal trends on the species level. An ordination analysis of all species per section suggests that species dependent on the intertidal mudflats decline more than species depending on the sublitoral and outer sea. Trends in population growth rates confirm this pattern. Discussions during and after the workshop led to a list of recommendations for future monitoring. To determine population trends, a complete count should be undertaken more frequently, by a trained Mauritanian team. Besides more data, this will lead to more experience and a better census. This is a preferred scenario, but it will take considerable investments, particularly in the installation of a permanent, skilled and motivated team of observers. Senior bird counters, trend analysis professionals, and a local guide should be involved to train this team. A course in count data analysis should be organised the Netherlands, and frequent training sessions should be organized in Mauritania, independent of the actual counts.

This project has been funded by the Department of Parks and Wildlife partnership with BHP Billiton “Eighty Mile Beach and Walyarta Conservation Program”, with in-kind support from NIOZ and Wetland Research & Management This report was produced at the Broome Bird Observatory in late October 2016. Abstract 1. This is a report on repeat surveys on the state of the benthic invertebrates at two internationally important areas of intertidal mudflats in northwest Australia (Roebuck Bay and Eighty Mile Beach) during October 2016. In the period 6-19 October 2016, we mapped the invertebrate macrobenthic animals (those retained by a 1 mm sieve) at the main intertidal sites of West Kimberley, WA: Eighty Mile Beach and Roebuck Bay. We revisited almost the entire intertidal area along Eighty Mile Beach that was ‘benthically’ mapped in October 1999. The benthic animals of the northern mudflats of Roebuck Bay had been mapped in 1997, 2000, 2002, and 2006; we revisited as many as possible of these previously established sampling stations along the northern shore. 2. Our team comprised close to 100 participants with greatly varying levels of experience, though similarly high motivation and enthusiasm. At Eighty Mile Beach we visited 816 sampling stations laid out in a grid of 200 m intersections over 7 separate areas along ca. 75 km of beach (from 10 km north of the Anna Plains Station beach access to 65 km south). In the northern part of Roebuck Bay, we visited 534 sampling stations also laid out in a grid with 200 m intersections (but with distance of 400 m in the southeast). We made notes on the surface features on the mud, including the presence or absence of seagrass and various macrofauna. In the course of digging up, sieving, and sorting the mud samples from all stations, we identified and measured 32,500 individual invertebrates. We tried to identify all animals groups up to the level of species if possible, all on the basis of morphological differences. These species were often given field names, as time and means (literature or access to internet) did not allow us to always attach a proper scientific name. In addition, it is very likely that some of the species are still undescribed. Animals were preserved on ethanol for a more thorough scientific identification at a later date. 3. This time we surveyed two very distinct sections of the West Kimberley coast. Roebuck Bay represents a true embayment that is semi-enclosed by mangroves along the eastern, and some of the western shores, and by cliff and pindan woodlands in the north. Eighty Mile Beach stretches over 200 km along the open Indian Ocean facing northwest. In this environment, the intertidal mud- and sandflat area stretches from 1-5 km wide from shore to sea and is enclosed by sand dunes and a few mangroves. Despite the two systems being very important as nonbreeding areas for the same species of long-distance migrant shorebirds, their geomorphology and ecology are very distinct. 4. At both areas the biodiversity of benthic animals was very high compared with other intertidal soft sediment areas across in the world. In Roebuck Bay, 368 species were found, and at Eighty Mile Beach 156 species, providing a total of 433 species/taxa. The most diverse group were the Polychaeta with 167 species, followed by Crustacea (74), Bivalvia (59), Gastropoda (59), and Echinodermata (35). All other groups total less than 12 species. 5. The two areas have 92 species in common, which in the case of Eighty Mile Beach means that 60% of the species also occur in Roebuck Bay. Major groups not found at Eighty Mile Beach were Asteroidea, Brachiopoda, Hirudinea, Oligochaeta, Platyhelminthes, Polyplacophora, and Pycnogonida. Most of these groups were also rare in Roebuck Bay, but the absence of Brachiopoda (lamp-shells) and Pycnogonida (seaspiders) at Eighty Mile Beach came as a surprise. Some species, including two species of Spionidae (Polychaeta) common at Eighty Mile Beach were either absent or extremely rare at Roebuck Bay. Furthermore, a small seacucumber with dark coloured spots all over its body, another larger seacucumber Paracaudina chilensis, two bivalve species of the genus Tellina, and two species of anemones were not found in Roebuck Bay. Yet, Roebuck Bay had many more species (277) not found at Eighty Mile Beach, the most common of these was the relatively large bivalve Tellina piratica, followed by the smooth tusk shell (Laevidentalium lubricatum), and the polychaete family Sternaspidae. 6. The large difference in biodiversity between Roebuck Bay and Eighty Mile Beach may be caused by different factors. Roebuck Bay has a greater variety of sedimentary habitats than Eighty Mile Beach. Eighty Mile Beach is completely exposed to the waves of Indian Ocean, while Roebuck Bay is protected by the peninsula on which Broome is situated. Therefore, notorious ‘ecosystem engineers’ such as the seagrasses occur quite extensively on the intertidal area of Roebuck Bay, but are not found at Eighty Mile Beach. These seagrass mats of Halodula uninervis and Halophila ovalis form special habitat for e.g. the little snail Smaragdia souverbiana. The influence of Broome city by episodic sewage and fertilizer releases, of which blooms of the cyanobacteria Lyngbya are an indication, can may well have a negative influence; opportunistic widespread species other than Lyngbya may of course benefit from the additional nutrient inputs. 7. Local communities and the land-owners actively participated in both expeditions. Several DPAW ranger groups (Yawuru, Karajarri and Nyangumarta) joined the sampling and also aided in the identification of species. Angela Rossen (WAMSI) spearheaded a biodiversity project that involved pupils from Cable Beach Primary School. We believe that we have raised wide awareness and generated considerable enthusiasm for the ecology of a unique contribution of northwest Australia to the world. 8. Based on their outstanding universal values, we recommend that the WA government consider an application of the joint marine reserves of Eighty Mile Beach and Roebuck Bay for World Heritage Status, thus joining China and South Korea in acknowledging and protecting this shared heritage.

The Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa; BTG) is a meadow bird (Verstrael 1987; Thijse 1904). The current Dutch population is estimated at 40.000 breeding pairs and represents an important part of the total continental BTG population Limosa limosa limosa. However, the number of breeding pairs has declined rapidly over the last decades, as compared to the 120.000 pairs in the 1960s (Mulder 1972). This is mainly caused by a change in agricultural land use. Intensification and rationalisation have led to degradation of the breeding habitat, resulting in low reproduction. The major cause of the decline is the simple fact that the total population in the Netherlands cannot produce enough chicks for a stable population. (Vickery et al. 2001; Newton 2004; Tscharnke et al. 2005; Teunissen & soldaat 2006). After the breeding season godwits migrate to southern Europe (Spain) and WestAfrica where they stay for wintering. (Márquez-Ferrando et al. 2009; Hooijmeijer et al. 2011).

Een vogelboek dat je op adembenemende wijze meeneemt naar de leefgebieden, vluchten en lichamelijke prestaties van dieren die in hun leven meerdere keren een zware marathon volbrengen. Dat is ‘Reisvogels’. Een bijzonder boek door de combinatie van tekst van hoogleraar trekvogelecologie Theunis Piersma en de sublieme foto’s van de bekende vogelfotograaf Jan van de Kam. Door de wetenschappelijk blik van de fotograaf zijn de foto’s meer dan mooie natuurfoto’s.