Extracting historical population trends using archival ringing data—an example: the globally threatened Aquatic Warbler

Understanding how animal population size changes over time is one of the key means to identify threats and facilitate the successful implementation of conservation measures. The globally endangered Aquatic Warbler has undergone a major decline throughout its range. While in the first half of the 20th century, it was still an abundant species across major parts of Central and Western Europe, over the last century the size of its European population is considered to have declined by more than 90 %. However, little is known of the historical changes in its population size. Here we model the past population size of the Aquatic Warbler using historical ringing records of European ringing schemes and population monitoring software (TRends for Indices and Monitoring). We found that during the short 30-year period between 1950 and 1980 the European Aquatic Warbler population underwent a dramatic 95 % decline. According to this model, the population has recently been stable, no further decline was observed between 1980 and the late 1990s.