Are birds more afraid in urban parks or cemeteries? A Latin American study contrasts with results from Europe

The escape behaviour, measured as flight initiation distance (FID; the distance at which individuals take flight when approached by a potential predator, usually a human in the study systems), is a measure widely used to study fearfulness and risk-taking in animals. Previous studies have shown signi...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	The Science of the total environment Vol. 861; p. 160534
Main Authors:	Morelli, Federico, Leveau, Lucas M., Mikula, Peter, MacGregor-Fors, Ian, Bocelli, M. Lucia, Quesada-Acuña, Sergio Gabriel, González-Lagos, César, Gutiérrez-Tapia, Pablo, Dri, Gabriela Franzoi, Delgado-V., Carlos A., Zavala, Alvaro Garitano, Campos, Jackeline, Ortega-Álvarez, Rubén, Contreras-Rodríguez, A. Isain, López, Daniela Souza, Toledo, Maria Cecília B., Sarquis, Andres, Giraudo, Alejandro, Echevarria, Ada Lilian, Fanjul, María Elisa, Martínez, María Valeria, Haedo, Josefina, Sanz, Luis Gonzalo Cano, Dominguez, Yuri Adais Peña, Fernandez, Viviana, Marinero, Veronica, Abilhoa, Vinícius, Amorin, Rafael, Fontana, Carla Suertegaray, da Silva, Thaiane Weinert, Vargas, Sarah Sandri Zalewski, Escobar Ibañez, Juan F., Juri, María Dolores, Camín, Sergio R., Marone, Luis, Piratelli, Augusto João, Franchin, Alexandre Gabriel, Crispim, Larissa, Benitez, Julieta, Benedetti, Yanina
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Netherlands Elsevier B.V 25-02-2023
Subjects:	Animals Aves Bayes Theorem Birds Cemeteries Cities Ecosystem Escape behaviour Europe Fear-response Human disturbance Humans Latin America Neotropics Parks, Recreational Phylogeny Urban ecology Urban parks Urbanization Europe Latin America Urban parks Cemeteries Urban ecology Urbanization Escape behaviour Fear-response Aves Human disturbance Neotropics
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	The escape behaviour, measured as flight initiation distance (FID; the distance at which individuals take flight when approached by a potential predator, usually a human in the study systems), is a measure widely used to study fearfulness and risk-taking in animals. Previous studies have shown significant differences in the escape behaviour of birds inhabiting cemeteries and urban parks in European cities, where birds seem to be shyer in the latter. We collected a regional dataset of the FID of birds inhabiting cemeteries and parks across Latin America in peri-urban, suburban and urban parks and cemeteries. FIDs were recorded for eighty-one bird species. Mean species-specific FIDs ranged from 1.9 to 19.7 m for species with at least two observations (fifty-seven species). Using Bayesian regression modelling and controlling for the phylogenetic relatedness of the FID among bird species and city and country, we found that, in contrast to a recent publication from Europe, birds escape earlier in cemeteries than parks in the studied Latin American cities. FIDs were also significantly shorter in urban areas than in peri-urban areas and in areas with higher human density. Our results indicate that some idiosyncratic patterns in animal fearfulness towards humans may emerge among different geographic regions, highlighting difficulties with scaling up and application of regional findings to other ecosystems and world regions. Such differences could be associated with intrinsic differences between the pool of bird species from temperate European and mostly tropical Latin American cities, characterized by different evolutionary histories, but also with differences in the historical process of urbanization. [Display omitted] •We estimated bird's flight initiation distance (FID) in 19 Latin American cities.•FID was shorter in urban park than in cemeteries, in contrast to Europe.•FID decreased with both human density and built-up area.•FID was significantly shorter in urban areas than in suburban and peri-urban areas.•Association between FID and urban areas can change with the geographic region.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0048-9697 1879-1026
DOI:	10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.160534