Stopover hotspots for migratory birds in North and Central America

Abstract

Despite the large body of literature on avian migratory behavior, there is little information about stopover sites during bird movement, including the population-level drivers of breeding grounds and wintering grounds. Stopovers play an essential role in bird migratory site chains for energy supply and rest. There is an urgent need to detect and protect stopover sites to secure the long-term sustainability of migratory network connectivity and robustness. To address this challenge, we reconstructed a migration network and identified geographic hotspots denoted as stopover sites by analyzing the high-density population movements of 52 focal migratory bird species with observation data from eBird through PageRank algorithm. Furthermore, potential alternative stopover sites were explored using a word embedding technique based on geo-functional similarity. Our study was conducted in North and Central America during a three-year period and revealed three key areas, including Florida peninsula and its inland, the region of Central America, and the region near Puget Sound. Results from this study can be used for conservation prioritization guidance.