Animals in urban habitats face many novel selection pressures such as increased human population densities and human disturbance. This is predicted to favour bolder and more aggressive individuals together with greater flexibility in behaviour. Previous work has focussed primarily on studying these traits in captive birds and has shown increased aggression and reduced consistency between traits (behavioural syndromes) in birds from urban populations. However, personality (consistency within a behavioural trait) has not been well studied in the wild. Here we tested whether urban free-living male great tits show greater territorial aggression than rural counterparts. We also tested predictions that both behavioural syndromes and personality would show lower consistency in urban populations. We found that urban populations were more aggressive than rural populations and urban birds appeared to show lower levels of individual behavioural repeatability (personality) as predicted. However, we found no effect of urbanisation on behavioural syndromes (correlations between multiple behavioural traits). Our results indicate that urban environments may favour individuals which exhibit increased territorial aggression and greater within-trait flexibility which may be essential to success in holding urban territories. Determining how urban environments impact key fitness traits will be important in predicting how animals cope with ongoing urbanisation.

中文翻译：

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在城市和乡村大山雀（大山雀）之间，领土侵略的可重复性和程度不同。

城市栖息地中的动物面临许多新的选择压力，例如人口密度的增加和人为的干扰。预计这将有利于更大胆，更具进取心的个人以及行为上的更大灵活性。先前的工作主要集中在研究圈养鸟类的这些特征，并且显示出城市人群鸟类的侵略性增加且特征（行为综合症）之间的一致性降低。但是，人格（行为特征内的一致​​性）在野外还没有得到很好的研究。在这里，我们测试了城市自由生活的男性大山雀是否表现出比农村同行更大的领土侵略性。我们还测试了行为综合症和人格都会在城市人口中显示出较低一致性的预测。我们发现，城市人口比农村人口更具攻击性，并且城市鸟类似乎表现出较低的个体行为可重复性（人格），如预期的那样。然而，我们发现城市化对行为综合症（多种行为特征之间的相关性）没有影响。我们的结果表明，城市环境可能偏向那些表现出更大的领土侵略性和更大的性内灵活性的个人，这对于成功地控制城市领土而言可能是必不可少的。在预测动物如何应对持续的城市化过程中，确定城市环境如何影响关键的健身特质至关重要。我们发现城市化对行为综合症（多种行为特征之间的相关性）没有影响。我们的结果表明，城市环境可能偏向那些表现出更大的领土侵略性和更大的性内灵活性的个人，这对于成功地控制城市领土至关重要。在预测动物如何应对持续的城市化过程中，确定城市环境如何影响关键的健身特质至关重要。我们发现城市化对行为综合症（多种行为特征之间的相关性）没有影响。我们的结果表明，城市环境可能偏向那些表现出更大的领土侵略性和更大的性内灵活性的个人，这对于成功地控制城市领土至关重要。在预测动物如何应对持续的城市化过程中，确定城市环境如何影响关键的健身特质至关重要。