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(Reference retrieved automatically from Web of Science through information on FAPESP grant and its corresponding number as mentioned in the publication by the authors.)

Rural-Urban Differences in Escape Behavior of European Birds across a Latitudinal Gradient

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Author(s):
Samia, Diogo S. M. [1] ; Blumstein, Daniel T. [2] ; Diaz, Mario [3] ; Grim, Tomas [4, 5] ; Diego Ibanez-Alamo, Juan [6, 7] ; Jokimaki, Jukka [8] ; Tatte, Kunter [9] ; Marko, Gabor [10, 11, 12] ; Tryjanowski, Piotr [13] ; Moller, Anders Pape [14]
Total Authors: 10
Affiliation:
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[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Biosci Inst, Dept Ecol, Sao Paulo - Brazil
[2] Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Ecol & Evolutionary Biol, Los Angeles, CA - USA
[3] CSIC, Museo Nacl Ciencias Nat, BGC, Dept Biogeog & Global Change, Madrid - Spain
[4] Palacky Univ, Dept Zool, Olomouc - Czech Republic
[5] Palacky Univ, Ornithol Lab, Olomouc - Czech Republic
[6] Univ Groningen, Ctr Ecol & Evolutionary Studies, Behav & Physiol Ecol Grp, Groningen - Netherlands
[7] CSIC, Estn Biol Donana, Dept Wetland Ecol, Seville - Spain
[8] Univ Lapland, Arctic Ctr, Nat Inventory & EIA Serv, Rovaniemi - Finland
[9] Univ Tartu, Inst Ecol & Earth Sci, Dept Zool, Tartu - Estonia
[10] Eotvos Lorand Univ, Hungarian Nat Hist Museum, Hungarian Acad Sci, Ecol Res Grp, Budapest - Hungary
[11] Eotvos Lorand Univ, Dept Systemat Zool & Ecol, Behav Ecol Grp, Budapest - Hungary
[12] Szent Istvan Univ, Dept Plant Pathol, Budapest - Hungary
[13] Poznan Univ Life Sci, Inst Zool, Poznan - Poland
[14] Univ Saclay, Univ Paris Sud, CNRS, Ecol Systemat Evolut, AgroParisTech, Orsay - France
Total Affiliations: 14
Document type: Journal article
Source: FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION; v. 5, JUN 26 2017.
Web of Science Citations: 19
Abstract

Behavioral adjustment is a key factor that facilitates species' coexistence with humans in a rapidly urbanizing world. Because urban animals often experience reduced predation risk compared to their rural counterparts, and because escape behavior is energetically costly, we expect that urban environments will select for increased tolerance to humans. Many studies have supported this expectation by demonstrating that urban birds have reduced flight initiation distance (FID = predator-prey distance when escape by the prey begins) than rural birds. Here, we advanced this approach and, for the first time, assessed how 32 species of birds, found in 92 paired urban-rural populations, along a 3,900 km latitudinal gradient across Europe, changed their predation risk assessment and escape strategy as a function of living in urban areas. We found that urban birds took longer than rural birds to be alerted to human approaches, and urban birds tolerated closer human approach than rural birds. While both rural and urban populations took longer to become aware of an approaching human as latitude increased, this behavioral change with latitude is more intense in urban birds (for a given unit of latitude, urban birds increased their pre-detection distance more than rural birds). We also found that as mean alert distance was shorter, urban birds escaped more quickly from approaching humans, but there was no such a relationship in rural populations. Although, both rural and urban populations tended to escape more quickly as latitude increased, urban birds delayed their escape more at low latitudes when compared with rural birds. These results suggest that urban birds in Europe live under lower predation risk than their rural counterparts. Furthermore, the patterns found in our study indicate that birds prioritize the reduction of on-going monitoring costs when predation risk is low. We conclude that splitting escape variables into constituent components may provide additional and complementary information on the underlying causes of escape. This new approach is essential for understanding, predicting, and managing wildlife in a rapidly urbanizing world. (AU)

FAPESP's process: 15/06734-1 - Evolution of condition dependent sexual dimorphism in a clade of neotropical arachnids: a comparative analysis of the genic capture hypothesis
Grantee:Diogo Soares Menezes Samia
Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral