A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
An evaluation of global LULC maps for the estimation of habitat use of a declining migratory waterbird along its flyway
Authors: van Toor, Mariëlle L.; Davranche, Aurélie; Delaunay, Gabriel; Murgue, Clément; Waldenström, Jonas; Arzel, Céline
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD
Publishing place: London
Publication year: 2025
Journal: Biological Conservation
Journal name in source: BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
Journal acronym: BIOL CONSERV
Article number: 111152
Volume: 307
Number of pages: 12
ISSN: 0006-3207
eISSN: 1873-2917
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111152
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111152
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/491874159
Global products of land use and land cover (LULC) provide maps with a consistent classification, thereby allowing for comparisons of resource and habitat use of species over large spatial scales. While global LULCs tend to be evaluated extensively, the distribution ranges of species can extend into remote areas that are hard to access for ground truthing. It is unclear how adequate global LULCs are for mapping habitat of long-distance migrants throughout their entire range. Here, we investigated whether different global LULCs could successfully capture the known preferences of a migratory wetland specialist, the Eurasian wigeon (Mareca penelope), along the East Atlantic flyway. We evaluated how well five different global LULC products captured known wigeon habitat preferences using remote tracking data, and tested whether a further classification based on wetland expert knowledge can improve on their performance. We found that average performance of global LULC products varied greatly, with ESA WorldCover performing best with a 94% correspondence to wigeon habitat. All products performed best in the Tundra biome, and worse in Boreal as well as Temperate forests. In the latter areas, our wetland expert LULC classification provided improved results by explicitly considering small and temporary wetlands, and wetlands underneath vegetation. Overall, habitat use of habitat specialists can inform us about habitat types that are currently not considered in large-scale LULC maps. We suggest LULC mapping methods integrate information from tracking of wetland specialists for a better detection of small and temporary wetlands on a global scale.
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Funding information in the publication:
Funded by the European Union under grant agreement (101084171) - (Kappa-Flu). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or REA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This study received support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 727922 (Delta-Flu). CA was supported by the Research Council of Finland (grant number 333400). AD received support from the Mismatch project (CNRS-INEE PEPS ECOMOB 2019) and the Kone Foundation (project POOL No 202106013). Funding sources had no involvement in the study.
