From eggs to fledging: negative impact of urban habitat on reproduction in two tit species

Bailly, Juliette; Scheifler, Renaud; Berthe, Sarah; Clément-Demange, Valérie-Anne; Leblond, Matthieu; Pasteur, Baptiste; Faivre, Bruno

doi:10.1007/s10336-015-1293-3

Cited by 70 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…However, it remains that while the other breeding traits show strong significant differences between forest and city, it did not translate in a similarly strong divergence for fledgling success. This result contrasts with previous findings in great tits (Bailly et al, 2016) and with the common assessment that the urban environment induces strong constraints on avian reproduction (Gil and Brumm, 2014). It raises the very interesting question of whether urban birds might display adaptive breeding strategies that differ from birds in the forest, yet do not lead to lower reproductive success (see further discussion on this possibility, below).…”

Section: Phenotypic Divergence Between Forest and City And Along The contrasting

confidence: 99%

Urbanization Is Associated with Divergence in Pace-of-Life in Great Tits

et al. 2017

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As an extension of the classic life history theory, the recently highlighted pace-of-life syndrome hypothesis predicts the coevolution of behavioral, physiological and life-history traits. For instance, bolder and shyer individuals do not only differ in personality profiles, but also in neuro-endocrinology and breeding patterns. While theory predicts that bolder (i.e., proactive), more aggressive individuals should colonize more rapidly urbanized habitats than shyer (i.e., reactive), less aggressive individuals, it is also predicted that across generations, adaptive selection processes could favor shyer individuals that are more sensitive to novel environmental cues. Here we compared two personality traits (handling aggression, exploration score in a novel environment), one physiological trait related to stress response (breath rate) and four breeding traits (lay date, clutch size, hatching success and fledging success) in a rural and an urban study population of Mediterranean great tits Parus major. Mixed models revealed strong phenotypic divergence between forest and city in most traits explored, in particular in personality, whereby urban great tits were more reactive to stress and faster explorers compared to rural birds (yet not more aggressive). Urban birds also laid smaller broods earlier in spring compared to their rural conspecifics, and city broods resulted in lower hatching success yet interestingly fledging success was similar. Nest-box centered measures of anthropogenic (artificial light, pedestrians, and cars) perturbation and resource abundance allowed us to go beyond the classical forest/city comparison by exploring the phenotypic variation across an urbanization gradient. This revealed that high urbanization in nest-box surroundings was associated overall with earlier breeding and smaller clutches, but also with faster breath rate, although these trends showed strong annual variation. Ongoing rapid urbanization and non-random gene flow between rural and urban great tits could both contribute to the high prevalence of bold breeders in the city. Our study suggests the existence of urban and rural great tit ecotypes with different pace-of-life, but also a finer-scale divergence along the degree of urbanization within the city. Future studies are required to determine whether this phenotypic variation at different spatiotemporal scales is adaptive and whether it has a genetic basis or results from phenotypic plasticity.

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Section: Phenotypic Divergence Between Forest and City And Along The contrasting

confidence: 99%

Urbanization Is Associated with Divergence in Pace-of-Life in Great Tits

et al. 2017

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“…The essential elements richness was lower in urban sites and, interestingly, it appeared to be positively correlated with the nestling mass and body condition. Our results are consistent with those reported in previous studies (Hõrak, 1993;Chamberlain et al, 2009;Bailly et al, 2016b) on the components of reproductive output, and suggest mechanisms to explain the negative effect of urbanization on the reproductive performance of Great tits.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Multi-Element Analysis of Blood Samples in a Passerine Species: Excesses and Deficiencies of Trace Elements in an Urbanization Study

et al. 2017

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Urbanization is a growing phenomenon characterized by a complete restructuring of natural areas. In urban bird populations, a reduced offspring survival and body condition and an overall lower breeding success are often observed compared to populations inhabiting more natural habitats. Higher pollution levels and poorer quality of natural resources in cities are two environmental factors frequently mentioned in the literature to explain the differences between urban and non-urban populations. Pollution and poor quality of food may lead to an excess of non-essential elements such as Pb or Cd or to deficiencies of essential elements such as Cu or Zn, which may explain some of the impacts, notably on immunity, observed in urbanization studies. The present study compared the breeding parameters, brood body mass and condition, and haptoglobin levels, a marker of inflammatory immunity, in two urban and two forest populations of Great tits in Eastern France, together with a multi-element analysis (25 non-essential and essential trace elements) of blood samples from 13-day-old nestlings from the four populations. The concentration of NO 2 , a gaseous pollutant typical of urban pollution, was also measured. The NO 2 concentrations were significantly higher in the urban areas, but no association with biological variables was detected. Non-essential metals were undetectable in the plasma of the birds from both habitats, except Pb, whose concentrations, however, did not differ between the urban and forest birds. A positive relationship was found between the plasmatic richness in essential elements (as assessed from the coordinates of the first axis of a PCA including 12 elements) and the average brood body mass and condition. We suggest that lower quality resources or/and a higher metabolic demand may be a causal mechanism for the reduced body condition often observed in urban bird nestlings. Finally, our exploratory study could promote more mechanistic experiments (e.g., supplementation) to explain the negative effect of urban conditions on bird populations.

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“…To acquire a robust insight into the relationship between urbanization and distress behavior, we assayed three different distress behaviors (distress calling rate, pecking rate, and breath rate) in seven replicate pairs of urban and rural/forest populations across Europe. Previous work on this species has revealed many differences between urban and rural great tits in terms of morphology (Horak et al, 1995;Senar et al, 2014;Biard et al, 2017), physiology (Andersson et al, 2015;Salmón et al, 2016;Toledo et al, 2016), genetics (Björklund et al, 2010;Riyahi et al, 2015), life-history (Berressem et al, 1983;Schmidt and Einloft-Achenbach, 1984;Isaksson and Andersson, 2007;Hedblom and Soderstrom, 2012;Bailly et al, 2015;Vaugoyeau et al, 2016;Charmantier et al, 2017), population dynamics (Horak and Lebreton, 1998), and behavior (Slabbekoorn and Peet, 2003;Salaberria and Gil, 2010;Riyahi et al, 2017). Urban great tits have been found to be more explorative and less neophobic than rural tits (Tryjanowski et al, 2016;Charmantier et al, 2017;Riyahi et al, 2017), to display shorter flight initiation distances (Møller et al, 2015), and to show a higher problem solving performance than rural birds (Preiszner et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Great Tits (Parus major) Show Higher Distress Calling and Pecking Rates than Rural Birds across Europe

et al. 2017

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Environmental change associated with urbanization is considered one of the major threats to biodiversity. Some species nevertheless seem to thrive in the urban areas, probably associated with selection for phenotypes that match urban habitats. Previous research defined different "copying styles" in distress behavior during the handling of birds. These behaviors vary along a continuum from "proactive" to "reactive" copers. By studying avian distress behaviors we aimed to broaden our understanding of the relationship between coping styles and urbanization. Using a large-scale comparative study of seven paired rural and urban sites across Europe, we assayed distress behaviors during handling of urban and rural-dwelling populations of the great tit Parus major. We detected no consistent pairwise differences in breath rate between urban and rural habitats. However, urban great tits displayed more distress calling (fear screams) and higher pecking rate (handling aggression) than rural birds. These findings suggest that urban great tits have a more proactive coping strategy when dealing with stressful conditions. This finding is in line with previous studies implying that urban great tits are more explorative, less neophobic, and display shorter flight distances than their rural counterparts, representing further aspects of the same "proactive," coping strategy. Future research should investigate whether reported differences in distress behavior are due to local adaption caused by natural selection or due to phenotypic plasticity.

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From eggs to fledging: negative impact of urban habitat on reproduction in two tit species

Cited by 70 publications

References 71 publications

Urbanization Is Associated with Divergence in Pace-of-Life in Great Tits

Urbanization Is Associated with Divergence in Pace-of-Life in Great Tits

Multi-Element Analysis of Blood Samples in a Passerine Species: Excesses and Deficiencies of Trace Elements in an Urbanization Study

Urban Great Tits (Parus major) Show Higher Distress Calling and Pecking Rates than Rural Birds across Europe

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