Coyotes living near cities are bolder: implications for dog evolution and human-wildlife conflict

Abstract

How animal populations adapt to human modified landscapes is central to understanding modern behavioural evolution and improving wildlife management. Coyotes (Canis latrans) have adapted to human activities and thrive in both rural and urban areas. Bolder coyotes showing reduced fear of humans and their artefacts may have an advantage in urban environments. We analysed the reactions of 636 coyotes to novel human artefacts (camera traps) at 575 sites across the state of North Carolina. Likelihood of a coyote approaching the camera increased with human housing density suggesting that urban coyotes are experiencing selection for boldness and becoming more attracted to human artefacts. This has implications for both human-wildlife conflict and theories of dog domestication. We also note physical traits in coyotes that could be the result of domestication-related selection pressures, or dog hybridization.

Cooperative Communication with Humans Evolved to Emerge Early in Domestic Dogs

“…Together, these results support the idea that, as human foragers became more sedentary, a population(s) of wolves was selected for an attraction to humans (and their food waste 44 ). Before this selection, any human-wolf interaction was constrained by the flight response of wolves.…”

The founder sociality hypothesis

“…At the same time, cities and towns have expanded into coyotes' original habitat (Hody & Kays, 2018). Coyotes adapting to urban areas in the east coast have been proposed as a candidate species to test predictions of the selfdomestication hypothesis and dog evolution (Brooks et al, 2020).…”

The journey in comparative psychology matters more than the destination.

“…All of these theories require a comprehensive and collaborative program of research that tests animals from a variety of social and physical environments (MacLean et al, 2012; Vonk et al, 2020). More recently, comparative psychologists have examined how humans have artificially selected for particular physical and behavioral traits and their relevance to cognition (in dogs, e.g., Hare et al, 2002), and how anthropogenic influences may have inadvertently impacted the evolution of other species, such as tree swallows (Injaian et al, 2018), red-winged blackbirds (Ríos-Chelén et al, 2015), coyotes (Brooks et al, 2020), and other large mammals (Yackulic et al, 2011). These shifts from “what” to “how” and “why” questions have opened the field to embrace the study of all species.…”