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# For migratory shorebirds, the landscape around a habitat patch improved the prediction
- URL: https://intelligence.wildlandseco.com/2026-09-25-shorebird-landscape-context-models/
- Published: 2026-09-25T11:24:36.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-25T11:24:36.000Z
- Description: Across six East Asian–Australasian Flyway species, models that added tidal-flat amount, patch density and surrounding land-cover diversity generally outperformed pixel- or distance-only habitat models.
- Author: Benjamin Worlund
- Tags: shorebirds, coastal habitat, species distribution models, flyways, Wildlife, Habitat, Connectivity, migration, GIS, modeling, #ecological-intelligence, #brief-2026-09-25, #priority-read, #peer-reviewed, #edition-lead

Evidence

Peer-reviewed

Geography

Coastal East Asian–Australasian Flyway

System

Coastal wetlands / migratory shorebird habitat

## WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Across six migratory shorebird species in the non-breeding season, species-distribution models that incorporated neighborhood habitat composition and configuration generally predicted habitat suitability better than conventional pixel-scale or distance-only models. Important predictors included distance to tidal flats and seasonal inland wetlands, tidal-flat area and patch density, land-cover diversity, and elevation; predicted suitability was only weakly positively correlated with observed abundance for most species.

## WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Habitat is not only the patch under a bird. For mobile species in heavily altered coastal landscapes, surrounding composition and configuration can change which places function as habitat and can change conservation-priority maps.

## CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is modeling evidence for six species, not a demographic test of survival or population growth. Abundance correlations were weak, and the publisher is currently sharing an accepted early version that remains subject to copyediting.

## SOURCE

Communications Earth & Environment  
[View original evidence ↗](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-04094-7?ref=intelligence.wildlandseco.com)

From the Morning Brief · 2026-09-25

[Read the full Morning Brief →](https://intelligence.wildlandseco.com/morning-brief-2026-09-25/)