An artificial nest experiment indicates equal nesting success of waders in coastal meadows and mires

Abstract

Degradation of the distinct, diverse and abundant wader communities in Estonian coastal meadows has been recorded along with the ceasing agricultural management there. At the same time, the same species have been occupying adjacent inland mires. This study exam-ined the possibility that waders are switching their habitat due to increased nest predation in coastal meadows. However, no differences in the average daily survival rates of artifi-cial nests were found between meadows and mires. Data on real wader nests indicated that artificial nests reflect the fate of real nests. We suggest that meadows may have lost a past safety advantage and now the breeders are re-settling according to the current habitat quality. However, given the general decline of waders, the temporally increasing popula-tions of mire breeders are hardly self-sustaining. Therefore, attempts to restore coastal meadows are crucial for the Baltic populations of several wader species.