scholarly journals Migratory songbirds in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway: a review from a conservation perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
DING LI YONG ◽  
YANG LIU ◽  
BING WEN LOW ◽  
CARMELA P. ESPAÑOLA ◽  
CHANG-YONG CHOI ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Habitat Loss ◽  
Migratory Birds ◽  
Southern China ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Conservation Priorities ◽  
Migratory Species ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Migratory Songbirds

SummaryThe East Asian-Australasian Flyway supports the greatest diversity and populations of migratory birds globally, as well as the highest number of threatened migratory species of any flyway, including passerines (15 species). However it is also one of the most poorly understood migration systems, and little is known about the populations and ecology of the passerine migrants that breed, stop over and winter in the habitats along this flyway. We provide the first flyway-wide review of diversity, ecology, and conservation issues relating to 170 species of long-distance and over 80 short-distance migrants from 32 families. Recent studies of songbird migration movements and ecology is limited, and is skewed towards East Asia, particularly Mainland China, Taiwan, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Strong evidence of declines exists for some species, e.g. Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberiza aureola, but tends to be fragmentary, localised or anecdotal for many others. More species have small breeding ranges (< 250,000 km2) and/or are dependent on tropical forests as wintering habitat than those in any other Eurasian migratory system, and are thus more vulnerable to habitat loss and degradation throughout their ranges. Poorly regulated hunting for food and the pet trade, invasive species and collisions with man-made structures further threaten migratory songbirds at a number of stop-over or wintering sites, while climate change and habitat loss may be of increasing concern in the breeding ranges. A key conservation priority is to carry out intensive field surveys across the region while simultaneously tapping into citizen science datasets, to identify important stop-over and wintering sites, particularly for poorly-known or globally threatened species across South-East Asia and southern China for targeted conservation actions. Additionally, the advent of miniaturised tracking technology, molecular and isotopic techniques can provide novel insights into migration connectivity, paths and ecology for species in this migration system, complementing data from banding exercises and observation-based surveys, and could prove useful in informing conservation priorities. However, until most states along the East Asian-Australasian flyway ratify the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and other cross-boundary treaties, the relative lack of cross-boundary cooperation, coordination and information sharing in the region will continue to present a stumbling block for effective conservation of migratory passerines.

Coupling of South and East Asian Monsoon Precipitation in July–August*

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (11) ◽  
pp. 4330-4356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse A. Day ◽  
Inez Fung ◽  
Camille Risi
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Bay Of Bengal ◽  
Moisture Transport ◽  
Asian Monsoon ◽  
East Asian Monsoon ◽  
Southern China ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Monsoon Circulation ◽  
Yunnan Plateau

Abstract The concept of the “Asian monsoon” masks the existence of two separate summer rainfall régimes: convective storms over India, Bangladesh, and Nepal (the South Asian monsoon) and frontal rainfall over China, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula (the East Asian monsoon). In addition, the Himalayas and other orography, including the Arakan Mountains, Ghats, and Yunnan Plateau, create smaller precipitation domains with abrupt boundaries. A mode of continental precipitation variability is identified that spans both South and East Asia during July and August. Point-to-point correlations and EOF analysis with Asian Precipitation–Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Toward Evaluation of the Water Resources (APHRODITE), a 57-yr rain gauge record, show that a dipole between the Himalayan foothills (+) and the “monsoon zone” (central India, −) dominates July–August interannual variability in South Asia, and is also associated in East Asia with a tripole between the Yangtze corridor (+) and northern and southern China (−). July–August storm tracks, as shown by lag–lead correlation of rainfall, remain mostly constant between years and do not explain this mode. Instead, it is proposed that interannual change in the strength of moisture transport from the Bay of Bengal to the Yangtze corridor across the northern Yunnan Plateau induces widespread precipitation anomalies. Abundant moisture transport along this route requires both cyclonic monsoon circulation over India and a sufficiently warm Bay of Bengal, which coincide only in July and August. Preliminary results from the LMDZ version 5 (LMDZ5) model, run with a zoomed grid over Asia and circulation nudged toward the ECMWF reanalysis, support this hypothesis. Improved understanding of this coupling may help to project twenty-first-century precipitation changes in East and South Asia, home to over three billion people.

China, Japan, and Korea

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa L. Fong
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
International Comparisons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Republic Of Korea ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Sociologists, anthropologists, and historians have focused on diversity, inequality, and historical transformations in childhood and education in East Asian societies, while psychologists have focused on how the cultures, policies, and practices of East Asian societies have resulted in educational outcomes and patterns of child development that differ from those of societies outside East Asia, especially the United States. Prior to the 1980s, scholarship about childhood and education in East Asian societies was sparse, as social science scholarship infrastructures in East Asian societies were weak owing to political and economic limitations that resulted from the chaos left by the wars and revolutions that ravaged East Asian societies during the first half of the 20th century. In addition, the social sciences were dominated by Anglophone scholars whose interest in East Asian societies focused mostly on non–child-related aspects of those societies’ cultures, social structures, histories, politics, and literatures, while Anglophone psychologists and education researchers concentrated primarily on childhood and education in their own societies, paying little attention to these issues in East Asia. Scholarly interest in childhood and education in East Asia flourished after the 1980s, though,as a result of the increasing cultural, political, and economic power of East Asian societies; their tendency to do as well as, or even better than, Anglophone societies in international academic competitions; the rising numbers of emigrants from East Asia who brought interest and expertise in their home societies to the Anglophone societies to which they migrated; and globalizing forces that made East Asian societies more interesting to Anglophone social scientists, including psychologists and education researchers who had previously paid little attention to international comparisons. The amount of scholarly attention each country has attracted has been proportionate to its population, emigration patterns, and cultural, political, and economic influence on the rest of the world; thus, mainland China has attracted the bulk of scholarly attention paid to East Asian societies, with Japan coming in second, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) coming in third, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) not represented at all because it has been inaccessible to social scientists outside its borders.

scholarly journals Habitat loss on the breeding grounds is a major contributor to population declines in a long-distance migratory songbird

2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1949) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael T. Hallworth ◽  
Erin Bayne ◽  
Emily McKinnon ◽  
Oliver Love ◽  
Junior A. Tremblay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Loss ◽  
Annual Cycle ◽  
Forest Loss ◽  
Population Declines ◽  
Migration Routes ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Migratory Songbirds ◽  
Breeding Grounds ◽  
Migratory Songbird ◽  
Land Use Practices

Many migratory species are declining and for most, the proximate causes of their declines remain unknown. For many long-distance Neotropical migratory songbirds, it is assumed that habitat loss on breeding or non-breeding grounds is a primary driver of population declines. We integrated data collected from tracking technology, community science and remote sensing data to quantify migratory connectivity (MC), population trends and habitat loss. We quantified the correlation between forest change throughout the annual cycle and population declines of a long-distance migratory songbird, the Connecticut warbler ( Oporornis agilis , observed decline: −8.99% yr −1 ). MC, the geographic link between populations during two or more phases of the annual cycle, was stronger between breeding and autumn migration routes (MC = 0.24 ± 0.23) than between breeding and non-breeding locations (MC = −0.2 ± 0.14). Different Connecticut warbler populations tended to have population-specific fall migration routes but overlapped almost completely within the northern Gran Chaco ecoregion in South America. Cumulative forest loss within 50 km of breeding locations and the resulting decline in the largest forested patch index was correlated more strongly with population declines than forest loss on migratory stopover regions or on wintering locations in South America, suggesting that habitat loss during the breeding season is a driver of observed population declines for the Connecticut warbler. Land-use practices that retain large, forested patches within landscapes will likely benefit breeding populations of this declining songbird, but further research is needed to help inform land-use practices across the full annual cycle to minimize the impacts to migratory songbirds and abate ongoing population declines.

Phenomenology in East Asia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toru Tani ◽  
Nam-In Lee ◽  
Ni Liangkang ◽  
Fang Xianghong
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
East Asia ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Phenomenological Research ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Korean War

Western philosophy was rapidly introduced into East Asia from the second half of the nineteenth century, in a movement that began in Japan but quickly spread to China and Korea. When phenomenology appeared in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro was one of the first to realize its importance. In the 1920s, many Japanese scholars, including a number of Nishida’s students, traveled to Europe to study under Husserl and Heidegger in Freiburg. Korean philosophers also became interested in phenomenology in the 1920s, and Xiong Wei of China went to Freiburg in the 1930s and was greatly influenced by Heidegger. The reception of Western philosophy was impeded by the barrier of a different culture and intellectual tradition, in addition to the barrier of language, but phenomenology was felt to have many affinities to East Asian thinking. This was particularly true of Heidegger’s work. Both Husserl and Heidegger were criticized from the East Asian perspective on various points, but this criticism helped to develop the phenomenological movement as an intercultural project engaging both East and West. Japan, Korea and the countries that make up the Chinese cultural sphere have much in common, but differences in political and social climate affected the development of phenomenological research in each country. In Japan, existentialism became popular after the nation’s defeat in World War II (1939–45) and this led to a shift in interest from German phenomenology to French thinkers like Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. The Korean peninsula suffered a long period of chaos because of the same war and the Korean War that followed (1950–3), and the resulting devastation there also led to a heightened interest in existentialism. Marxism also became an important influence, especially in Japan, where various left-leaning thinkers attempted to integrate phenomenology with Marxist thought. In mainland China, the Communist Revolution and subsequent establishment of the People’s Republic of China (1949) and the Cultural Revolution of 1966–76 hampered the reception of Western philosophy, but the country has since produced many fine phenomenological researchers. The Chinese University of Hong Kong is a long-standing centre of phenomenological research and has maintained close ties with institutions on the mainland since Hong Kong’s reversion to China in 1997. Scholars in Taiwan continued to study phenomenology throughout the postwar period and now maintain active exchange with colleagues in Hong Kong and mainland China. Phenomenology is well established in East Asia, with research expanding in many directions. Scholars keep up with developments in the West and pursue research in similar directions; others focus on the connection between phenomenology and the intellectual traditions of East Asia; still others apply the methods of phenomenology to interdisciplinary studies. Other phenomenologists are working on original theories that are relatively free of cultural and disciplinary boundaries. Research is active at universities in all the countries in question. Each country has phenomenological organizations that are active domestically and which engage in academic exchange with organizations abroad. On the whole, East Asia may be said to be one of phenomenology’s most active venues.

Phytogeography of pteridophytes on limestone areas in Guangdong, China

Phytotaxa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 317 (2) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
FA-GUO WANG ◽  
AI-HUA WANG ◽  
RONG-RONG HE ◽  
DONG-MEI YANG ◽  
CHUN-MEI HE ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Strong Interaction ◽  
Southern China ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Guangdong Province ◽  
Plant Geography ◽  
Tropical Asia

Guangdong Province, located in southern China, is of great interest in studies of plant geography and conservation in limestone areas because of its rich biodiversity. We: (1) performed a phytogeographical analysis of pteridophytes in the limestone areas in Guangdong, (2) evaluated and determined levels of endemism, and (3) identified affinities with the floras of neighboring limestone areas. We found that some families show a preference for limestone habitats, e.g., Hypodematiaceae, Lygodiaceae, and Adiantaceae, are typical elements among pteridophytes in the limestone regions of Guangdong. In addition, some genera or section, such as Hypodematium, and Polystichum sect. Cyrtogonellum, show an exclusive preference for limestone habitats. The predominant phytogeographical affinities identified were East Asia, Chinese endemic, and Tropical Asia. We concluded that: (1) the limestone fern flora of Guangdong is principally subtropical in nature and represents southern subtropical flora at the margins of the northern tropics, with a strong interaction with the East Asian flora, (2) the limestone fern flora of Guangdong has a phytogeographical affinity with Japan, though the floras of neighboring Guangxi and Hainan Provinces have higher similarity with it.

Ancient DNA indicates human population shifts and admixture in northern and southern China

Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. eaba0909 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melinda A. Yang ◽  
Xuechun Fan ◽  
Bo Sun ◽  
Chungyu Chen ◽  
Jianfeng Lang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Human Population ◽  
Southern China ◽  
East Asian ◽  
The Past ◽  
Genetic History ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
China Mainland ◽  
East Asian Ancestry

Human genetic history in East Asia is poorly understood. To clarify population relationships, we obtained genome wide data from 26 ancient individuals from northern and southern East Asia spanning 9,500-300 years ago. Genetic differentiation was higher in the past than the present, reflecting a major episode of admixture involving northern East Asian ancestry spreading across southern East Asia after the Neolithic, transforming the genetic ancestry of southern China. Mainland southern East Asian and Taiwan Strait island samples from the Neolithic show clear connections with modern and ancient samples with Austronesian-related ancestry, supporting a southern China origin for proto-Austronesians. Connections among Neolithic coastal groups from Siberia and Japan to Vietnam indicate that migration and gene flow played an important role in the prehistory of coastal Asia.

scholarly journals Phylogeography of 27,000 SARS-CoV-2 Genomes: Europe as the Major Source of the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 1678
Author(s):  
Teresa Rito ◽  
Martin B. Richards ◽  
Maria Pala ◽  
Margarida Correia-Neves ◽  
Pedro A. Soares
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
East Asia ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The World ◽  
Containment Measures ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 emerged from a zoonotic transmission in China towards the end of 2019, rapidly leading to a global pandemic on a scale not seen for a century. In order to cast fresh light on the spread of the virus and on the effectiveness of the containment measures adopted globally, we used 26,869 SARS-CoV-2 genomes to build a phylogeny with 20,247 mutation events and adopted a phylogeographic approach. We confirmed that the phylogeny pinpoints China as the origin of the pandemic with major founders worldwide, mainly during January 2020. However, a single specific East Asian founder underwent massive radiation in Europe and became the main actor of the subsequent spread worldwide during March 2020. This lineage accounts for the great majority of cases detected globally and even spread back to the source in East Asia. Despite an East Asian source, therefore, the global pandemic was mainly fueled by its expansion across and out of Europe. It seems likely that travel bans established throughout the world in the second half of March helped to decrease the number of intercontinental exchanges, particularly from mainland China, but were less effective between Europe and North America where exchanges in both directions are visible up to April, long after bans were imposed.

Interaction between the Black Carbon Aerosol Warming Effect and East Asian Monsoon Using RegCM4

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (22) ◽  
pp. 9367-9388 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. L. Zhuang ◽  
S. Li ◽  
T. J. Wang ◽  
J. Liu ◽  
H. M. Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Black Carbon ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Asian Monsoon ◽  
Meridional Circulation ◽  
East Asian Monsoon ◽  
Southern China ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Black Carbon Aerosol

AbstractBlack carbon aerosol (BC) has a significant influence on regional climate changes because of its warming effect. Such changes will feed back to BC loadings. Here, the interactions between the BC warming effect and the East Asian monsoon (EAM) in both winter (EAWM) and summer (EASM) are investigated using a regional climate model, RegCM4, that essentially captures the EAM features and the BC variations in China. The seasonal mean BC optical depth is 0.021 over East Asia during winter, which is 10.5% higher than that during summer. Nevertheless, the BC direct radiative forcing is 32% stronger during summer (+1.85 W m−2). The BC direct effect would induce lower air to warm by 0.11–0.12 K, which causes a meridional circulation anomaly associated with a cyclone at 20°–30°N and southerly anomalies at 850 hPa over East Asia. Consequently, the EAM circulation is weakened during winter but enhanced during summer. Precipitation is likely increased, especially in southern China during summer (by 3.73%). Relative to BC changes that result from EAM interannual variations, BC changes from its warming effect are as important but are weaker. BC surface concentrations are decreased by 1%–3% during both winter and summer, whereas the columnar BC is increased in south China during winter. During the strongest monsoon years, the BC loadings are higher at lower latitudes than those during the weakest years, resulting in more southerly meridional circulation anomalies and BC feedbacks during both winter and summer. However, the interactions between the BC warming effect and EAWM/EASM are more intense during the weakest monsoon years.

scholarly journals Conserving migratory waterbirds and the coastal zone: the future of South-east Asia's intertidal wetlands

Oryx ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Ding Li Yong ◽  
Jing Ying Kee ◽  
Pyae Phyo Aung ◽  
Anuj Jain ◽  
Chin-Aik Yeap ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Protected Area ◽  
Coastal Wetlands ◽  
Habitat Restoration ◽  
Migratory Birds ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Migratory Species ◽  
Coastal Governance ◽  
Waterbird Species ◽  
Declining Species ◽  
Migratory Waterbirds

Abstract South-east Asia's diverse coastal wetlands, which span natural mudflats and mangroves to man-made salt pans, offer critical habitat for many migratory waterbird species in the East Asian–Australasian Flyway. Species dependent on these wetlands include nearly the entire population of the Critically Endangered spoon-billed sandpiper Calidris pygmaea and the Endangered spotted greenshank Tringa guttifer, and significant populations of several other globally threatened and declining species. Presently, more than 50 coastal Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) in the region (7.4% of all South-east Asian IBAs) support at least one threatened migratory species. However, recent studies continue to reveal major knowledge gaps on the distribution of migratory waterbirds and important wetland sites along South-east Asia's vast coastline, including undiscovered and potential IBAs. Alongside this, there are critical gaps in the representation of coastal wetlands across the protected area networks of many countries in this region (e.g. Viet Nam, Indonesia, Malaysia), hindering effective conservation. Although a better understanding of the value of coastal wetlands to people and their importance to migratory species is necessary, governments and other stakeholders need to do more to strengthen the conservation of these ecosystems by improving protected area coverage, habitat restoration, and coastal governance and management. This must be underpinned by the judicious use of evidence-based approaches, including satellite-tracking of migratory birds, ecological research and ground surveys.

Effects of the Saemangeum Reclamation Project on migratory shorebird staging in the Saemangeum and Geum Estuaries, South Korea

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 238-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
JONG KOO LEE ◽  
OK-SIK CHUNG ◽  
JIN-YOUNG PARK ◽  
HWA-JUNG KIM ◽  
WEE-HAENG HUR ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Disturbance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Migratory Birds ◽  
East Asian ◽  
River Channel ◽  
Habitat Conditions ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Migratory Shorebirds ◽  
Reclamation Project ◽  
Near Threatened

SummaryThe Saemangeum tidal flat, an important staging site for migratory shorebirds that travel the East Asian-Australasian (EAA) Flyway, was isolated from the eastern Yellow Sea in 2006 as part of a large-scale reclamation project. To gain a better understanding of the impacts that this reclamation has had on the long-distance migratory shorebirds that use the EAA Flyway, we examined the number of shorebirds visiting Saemangeum and three adjacent sites in the Geum Estuary (Yubu Island, the Janghang coastline, and the Geum River Channel) during the spring and fall prior to, and after, completion of the reclamation (2004–2013). A total of 48 shorebird species, including one Critically Endangered, three Endangered, and nine Near Threatened species, were observed over this period. Peak numbers of shorebirds recorded at sites in Saemangeum and the Geum Estuary following completion of the project were 74% below those recorded in 2004 and 2005, the years prior to reclamation activity. In Saemangeum, shorebird abundance declined by approximately 95% and 97.3% during the northward and southward migrations, respectively, as a result of reclamation. Although shorebird populations in the Geum Estuary increased by 5% and 20% during the northwards and southward migrations, respectively, these increases failed to offset the reduction in shorebird abundance in Saemangeum; overall, shorebird abundance at Saemangeum and the three adjacent sites in the Geum Estuary markedly declined over the reclamation period. Given the more favourable conditions of adjacent areas, sites in Saemangeum and the Geum Estuary no longer provide the habitat conditions necessary for long-distance migratory shorebirds. In order to improve habitat for staging migratory birds, we suggest that measures such as the conversion of an abandoned salt farm for use as roosting sites, the construction of artificial barriers to prevent human disturbance, and re-opening of the river-banks to facilitate water flow be implemented.

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