Population status and ecology of shorebirds in Alaska. Alaska is widely recognized as a global center for shorebirds. Ninety percent of the migratory species (n = 53) in the Western Hemisphere have breeding populations in Alaska; 37 of these, plus three additional races, regularly breed there. The North Pacific, including Alaska and the Russian Far East, host fully one-third of the world's shorebird fauna. These stocks, but Alaska's in particular, disperse during the nonbreeding season to at least five different continents, primarily the Americas, Australasia, and Oceania. Included are several poorly known species such as Surfbird (Aphriza virgata), Bristle-thighed Curlew (Numenius tahitiensis), Rock Sandpiper (Calidris ptilocnemis), Black Turnstone (Arenaria melanocephala), Buff-breasted Sandpiper (Tryngities subruficollis), and Hudsonian Godwit (Limosa haemastica). For almost all of the shorebirds occurring in Alaska, coastal habitats are critical during some phase of their annual cycle, particularly during the nonbreeding period. Many coastal areas are being altered at an alarming rate, not only in East Asia where broad-scale reclamation of intertidal habitats persists, but also in the Western Hemisphere where the problem is much more localized, but nevertheless ongoing. Effective conservation of any natural resource requires an understanding of population dynamics and habitat requirements. For many arctic breeding shorebirds such parameters as population size, annual productivity, rates of adult and juvenile mortality, feeding habits, and migration strategies, including habitat dependence and timing and routes of migration, are largely unknown. The overriding focus of this program has been to fill in these information needs for as many taxa as possible in order that as many species as possible can be included in a comprehensive monitoring effort. This is being done in cooperation with numerous local, national, and international shorebird interests, but in particular through development of the North American Shorebird Plan, the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, the Russian Working Group on Waders, the Australasian Wader Studies Group, and the Alaska Shorebird Working Group.