Shorebird migration stopover sites

Nearly all of the world's population of western sandpipers stop to rest and refuel in the Fraser River Delta during their massive 12,000 kilometer migration between their nesting grounds in Alaska and wintering sites from California to Peru. SeaDoc funded a project that answered the question of how to determine the best stopover sites and developed a tool that uses plasma metabolites. We now have a tool to help identify and protect important shorebird migratory stopover sites.

• Effects of physiological state, mass change, and diet on plasma metabolite profiles in the Western Sandpiper (Calidris mauri)

• Landscape-scale physiology: site differences in refueling rates as indicated by plasma metabolite analysis in free-living, migratory sandpipers.

• Feeding-danger trade-offs underlie stopover site selection by migrants