Pedestrian Density Influences Flight Distances of Urban Birds

Mikula, Peter

doi:10.5253/078.102.0105

Cited by 50 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Many studies of escape behavior in birds focused on the influence of external factors affecting behavioral responses: habitat quality (Burger, Gochfeld, Jenkins, & Lesser, 2010), the direction of approach by predators (Møller & Tryjanowski, 2014), intruder starting distance (Blumstein, 2013;Glover et al, 2011), number or density of intruders (Geist, Liao, Libby, & Blumstein, 2001), population density (Mikula, 2014), urbanization (Samia et al, 2017), road speed limits (Legagneux & Ducatez, 2013), insular distribution (Cooper, Pyron, & Garland, 2014), predator-prey interactions (Møller, 2008b), spatial gradients of predator abundance (Díaz et al, 2013), or daytime and season when FID was measured (Burger & Gochfeld, 1991;Piratelli, Favoretto, & de Almeida Maximiano, 2015). Blumstein (2006) has made links between escape behavior and life history and natural history traits (e.g., diet) in birds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contagious fear: Escape behavior increases with flock size in European gregarious birds

Morelli

Benedetti

Dı́az

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Flight initiation distance (FID), the distance at which individuals take flight when approached by a potential (human) predator, is a tool for understanding predator–prey interactions. Among the factors affecting FID, tests of effects of group size (i.e., number of potential prey) on FID have yielded contrasting results. Group size or flock size could either affect FID negatively (i.e., the dilution effect caused by the presence of many individuals) or positively (i.e., increased vigilance due to more eyes scanning for predators). These effects may be associated with gregarious species, because such species should be better adapted to exploiting information from other individuals in the group than nongregarious species. Sociality may explain why earlier findings on group size versus FID have yielded different conclusions. Here, we analyzed how flock size affected bird FID in eight European countries. A phylogenetic generalized least square regression model was used to investigate changes in escape behavior of bird species in relation to number of individuals in the flock, starting distance, diet, latitude, and type of habitat. Flock size of different bird species influenced how species responded to perceived threats. We found that gregarious birds reacted to a potential predator earlier (longer FID) when aggregated in large flocks. These results support a higher vigilance arising from many eyes scanning in birds, suggesting that sociality may be a key factor in the evolution of antipredator behavior both in urban and rural areas. Finally, future studies comparing FID must pay explicit attention to the number of individuals in flocks of gregarious species.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contagious fear: Escape behavior increases with flock size in European gregarious birds

Morelli

Benedetti

Dı́az

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Frequent non‐threatening exposure to humans in these areas may result in shorter FID compared to hyrax populations in kopjes lacking human presence. Studies on bird FID in relation to varying levels of non‐threatening human disturbance found a decrease in FID with increasing exposure rates (Engelhardt & Weladji, ; Malo, Acebes, & Traba, ; McGowan et al, ; Mikula, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human habituation reduces hyrax flight initiation distance in Serengeti

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many animal populations are exposed to disturbance originating from human activities. In response to human disturbance, certain animals display a variety of potentially costly behavioural responses, such as increased antipredator behaviour or relocation to new areas. In contrast, other animals seemingly thrive in the presence of humans and benefit from human‐derived resources. Flight initiation distance (FID: the distance between predator and prey when prey starts to flee) is a measure commonly used to assess animals’ tolerance to humans. In this study, we tested how FID changes in relation to human presence in two hyrax species in Serengeti National Park. Hyraxes living on kopjes (rock outcrops) among human settlements showed a significantly shorter FID than hyraxes living on kopjes without human settlements. In addition, we found that hyraxes feeding before the experiment had shorter FID than hyraxes resting or being vigilant, and hyraxes disturbed during the early morning had shorter FID than hyraxes disturbed during late morning. We did not find any significant effects of group size or species composition on FID. Our results suggest that hyraxes living in the presence of humans are habituated and are not adversely affected by human settlements.

show abstract

“…The decision as to when to flee from a potential threat weighs the various opportunity and energetic costs of escape against the probability of mortality (Ydenberg and Dill, 1986;Cooper, 2015b). These costs are themselves dependent on numerous intrinsic and extrinsic factors including habitat type and openness (Martin and López, 1995); temperature (in ectotherms) (Hertz et al, 1982); sex (Lailvaux et al, 2003); and the presence of humans (Mikula, 2014). That urban populations of birds allow closer approach of humans before initiating escape compared to rural ones has been attributed to habituation to human presence (Cooke, 1980;Blumstein, 2014).…”

Section: Escape Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

It’s Not Easy Being Green: Behavior, Morphology, and Population Structure in Urban and Natural Populations of Green Anole (Anolis carolinensis) Lizards

Lailvaux

2020

Front. Ecol. Evol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Selection on behavior, signaling, and morphology can be strongly affected by variation in habitat type. Consequently, populations inhabiting different environments can exhibit divergent phenotypes as a result of either habitat-specific selection or plasticity. Urban habitats in particular represent different challenges for organisms adapted for rural environments, including disparate complements of predators and competitors, resource availability, and habitat complexity. In this paper, I review work aimed at understanding the different selective challenges experienced by rural and urban populations of green anole lizards, primarily those in southeastern Louisiana. I also describe a long-term mark-recapture experiment on an urban population of green anoles in New Orleans, and consider how sex ratios and population density changes over time. Collectively, this work shows that urban and rural populations of green anoles diverge markedly in behavior and morphology driven both by differences in habitat and the presence of competitors in the urban environment; however, it also shows that the effects of urbanization on the ecology and evolution of green anoles are understudied.

show abstract

Pedestrian Density Influences Flight Distances of Urban Birds

Abstract: BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.

Cited by 50 publications

References 47 publications

Contagious fear: Escape behavior increases with flock size in European gregarious birds

Contagious fear: Escape behavior increases with flock size in European gregarious birds

Human habituation reduces hyrax flight initiation distance in Serengeti

It’s Not Easy Being Green: Behavior, Morphology, and Population Structure in Urban and Natural Populations of Green Anole (Anolis carolinensis) Lizards

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About