Fig. 1

Four migratory variables for pre- and post-breeding migration in six EAAF migratory sandpipers. (iA) traditional migration speed (km/d) calculated as the total migration distance divided by total migration duration; (iB) partial migration speed (km/d), dividing migration distance between the first staging site and the wintering/breeding grounds by the total duration from arrival at the first staging site until arrival at the breeding/wintering grounds; (ii) number of staging sites; (iii) total migration distance (km); (iv) the maximum step length (km). Species along the X-axes are ranked in order of increasing lean body mass. The thick line within each box and whisker plot represents the median, and the lower and upper box border represents the first and the third quartile, respectively. Whiskers denote the lower and upper 95% confidence interval. Dots outside the whiskers are outliners above or below the 95% confidence interval. Because of low samples size in Tattler and Red Knot (i.e. three and two data points, respectively) individual data points and medians are presented for these species