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New information on the breeding and moulting ecology of the Eastern population of Lesser White-fronted Goose Anser erythropus from GPS/GSM tracking data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2025

Diana Solovyeva ,
Jialin Lei ,
Haitao Tian Open the ORCID record for Haitao Tian [Opens in a new window] ,
Rong Fan ,
Sergey Vartanyan ,
Gleb Danilov ,
Daria Barykina ,
Fanjuan Meng ,
Cai Lu  and
Qing Zeng Open the ORCID record for Qing Zeng [Opens in a new window]
...Show all authors
Diana Solovyeva
Affiliation:
Institute of Biological Problems of the North, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Magadan, Russia
Jialin Lei
Affiliation:
Center for East Asian-Australasian Flyway Studies, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China
Haitao Tian
Affiliation:
Jingzhou Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources and Urban-Rural Development, Hubei, China
Rong Fan
Affiliation:
Center for East Asian-Australasian Flyway Studies, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China
Sergey Vartanyan
Affiliation:
North-East Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Institute n. a. N. A. Shilo, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Magadan, Russia
Gleb Danilov
Affiliation:
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
Daria Barykina
Affiliation:
Institute of Biological Problems of the North, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Magadan, Russia
Fanjuan Meng
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Cai Lu
Affiliation:
Center for East Asian-Australasian Flyway Studies, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China
Qing Zeng*
Affiliation:
Center for East Asian-Australasian Flyway Studies, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China
Guangchun Lei
Affiliation:
Center for East Asian-Australasian Flyway Studies, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China
*
Corresponding author: Qing Zeng; Email: [email protected]
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Summary

The Eastern population of the Lesser White-fronted Goose (EPLWFG) Anser erythropus is shared between Russia and China. The summer range of the EPLWFG has been recognised as a continuous area extending from the Olenyok River in the west to the Anadyr River in the east and northwards from 64°N. The aim of this study was to provide information on breeding behaviour; nest-sites, nesting habitats, and time of nesting; nesting success; timing of summer movements including moult migration; moult timing, duration, and moulting habitats; site fidelity; and the effect of human presence. To accomplish this, we combined the results from field surveys with GPS/GSM tracking. A total of 30 summer tracks from 19 individual EPLWFG were analysed. We estimated breeding propensity in 93.8% of adult LWFG, and this factor did not seem to depend on breeding success in the previous season. Reproductive success was 13.3% in all nesting attempts. Non-breeders arrived three-week later and departed a week earlier. The EPLWFG are highly mobile during the summer. The core moulting site for the entire EPLWFG was discovered by this study and is located along the lower reaches of the San-Yuryakh and Kyuanekhtyakh rivers flowing towards the Omulyakhskaya Bay of the East Siberian Sea. The EPLWFG flightless period was 24.8 ± 2.8 days. A part of failured EPLWFG (43.7 %) migrated back to its early summer breeding/staging site after having completed moult. The strong site fidelity (100%) of adult birds to both nesting and moulting sites promotes the formation of local breeding populations, which could be considered conservation units if genetic studies support this differentiation. The EPLWFG selects the remotest and least human-accessible area for their remigial moult, and the main site was discovered with the help of tracking.

Keywords

Key moulting sitebreeding propensitysite fidelitynest successtiming of nesting
Type
Research Article
Information
Bird Conservation International , Volume 35 , 2025 , e1
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of BirdLife International

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Footnotes

*

These authors contributed equally to this work.

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