Large Terrestrial Bird Adapting Behavior in an Urbanized Zone

Abstract

Wildlife living within urban ecosystems have to adapt or perish. Red-legged Seriema, a large terrestrial bird, are rare in urban ecosystems, however, they have been reported in a medium-sized Brazilian city. We investigated the reasons for this occurrence as well as their behavior. We assessed the distribution of Seriemas (including fledglings), free-ranging cats, and cat-feeding points provided by humans, and past records of Seriemas in the study area. We discovered that Seriemas are sharing spatial resources with cats without apparent conflicts, and intraspecific competition was important to define the spatial distribution of Seriemas. This species is able to use human-made structures to improve territory defense and opportunistic foraging. Direct and indirect human food provisioning is helping them to survive in the studied area, but is also facilitating the domestication process, which may cause future conflicts with humans and cats. Although Seriemas have inhabited the studied urban area for years, they are still adapting their behaviors for urban life, as they have not yet perceived the dangers of automotive traffic. Our study corroborates that wild species may adapt to urban areas driven by human contact, but it also acts as a trap for the adaptive process.

Seriemas: A Literature Assessment and Recommendations for Future Research

“…The few studies examining the behavior Studies on seriema parasites are the sole example of a research topic that has been widely explored both in wild (Price 1968, Hellenthal et al 2001, Brum et al 2003, Marietto-Gonçalves et al 2009, Sousa et al 2010, Lunaschi and Drago 2012, Lunaschi et al 2015, Luz et al 2016) and captive birds (Teixeira et al 2008, da Silva et al 2009, Marietto-Gonçalves et al 2012, Snak et al 2014, Martins et al 2017. Of particular interest are those studies on potentially zoonotic parasites (Marietto-Gonçalves et al 2008, Vitaliano et al 2014, as people and seriemas can live in close proximity (Boyle 1917, Alvarsson 2012, Alexandrino et al 2019, and in some locations people hunt seriemas for food (Altrichter 2006, Alvarsson 2012. The number of studies conducted per month per species of seriema.…”

“…Although seriemas appear able to adapt, and can even take advantage of human-dominated ecosystems, the resulting interactions in these contexts are accompanied by various threats to these birds (Alexandrino et al 2019), including collisions with vehicles (Costa and Dias 2013, de Carvalho et al 2014, Carvalho et al 2015, secondary poisoning from rodent control (Silva Reis et al 2018), and the inadvertent domestication of seriemas (Alexandrino et al 2019). Also related to human activities, but mostly occurring in rural or natural ecosystems, hunting (Altrichter 2006, Alvarsson 2012, Barbara ´n 2017, Badini et al 2017, dos Santos Soares et al 2018, egg collecting (Boyle 1917, Alvarsson 2012, fires (Tubelis 2019), and habitat transformation for agriculture or development (de Souza et al 2018, Tubelis 2019) are threats to seriemas.…”

“…To fill existing knowledge gaps, we recommend: (1) reviewing and testing the hypotheses formulated by Redford and Peters (1986) regarding seriema feeding, vocalization, social, and territorial behaviors; (2) following up on or replicating the experimental and hypothesis-driven studies that have been conducted (e.g., de Souza et al 2018, Alexandrino et al 2019, Tubelis 2019); (3) continuing the documentation of seriema natural history, both opportunistically and intentionally; (4) assessing the effects of human activities on seriema behavior, adaptation, and survival, as well as the interactions between seriemas and people, considering the close cultural and ecological links between the two (e.g., Alvarsson 2012, Badini et al 2017; and (5) establishing programs to monitor the conservation status of seriemas across their ranges.…”

Aves do Campus “Luiz de Queiroz”

“…, sendo a ESALQ um polo de ensino e pesquisa na área ambiental e práticas sustentáveis, os efeitos deste isolamento nas populações da fauna silvestre poderão ser estudados ao longo dos anos pelos próprios membros desta escola. Assim, serão gerados conhecimentos aos gestores do campus para que este local possa se tornar um ambiente referência de coexistência entre cidadãos e a fauna do campus(Marchini e Ferraz 2014, Bovo et al 2018, Alexandrino et al 2019, Magioli et al 2019). …”