Environmental change through habitat fragmentation and urbanization drives biodiversity loss in the Neotropics at an alarming rate. Some individuals and species confined to habitat fragments may develop phenotypic adjustments that allow populations to persist, even in landscapes made harsh by human activities. Behavioral and morphological adjustments may enhance a population’s ability to cope with anthropogenic hazards. We examined potential differences in the behavioral and morphological phenotype of populations of the neotropical Wedge-billed Woodcreeper (Glyphorynchus spirurus)—an understory forest specialist insectivorous bird—between populations from urban fragmented forests and continuous preserved forests. We evaluated exploratory behavior and morphological traits using generalized linear models and linear discriminant analysis to quantify phenotypical differences among populations. We used failure time analysis to compare latency to explore and move during exploration in a Novel Environment Test (NET). Our analyses detected differences in certain movement behaviors (latencies to move during NET), indicating that individuals from fragmented forests are slow explorers in relation to individuals from the continuous forest. We also found shorter tarsi and tails in the fragmented forest population which were attributed to an overall reduction in body size in these populations. Our results suggest that environmental change driven by fragmentation in an urban landscape is causing population differentiation, but we cannot ascribe observed variations to evolutionary processes only, as the differences observed may be explained by other processes too. However, we suggest that phenotypic differences may be aiding this small understory forest specialist to persist in an urban fragmented landscape.

栖息地破碎化和城市化导致的环境变化以惊人的速度导致新热带地区的生物多样性丧失。一些被限制在栖息地碎片中的个体和物种可能会发生表型调整，即使在人类活动造成恶劣的景观中，也可以使种群持续存在。行为和形态调整可能会增强人口应对人为危害的能力。我们研究了新热带楔嘴鹬（Glyphorynchus spirurus ）种群的行为和形态表型的潜在差异。)——一种林下森林专家食虫鸟——介于城市碎片化森林和连续保护森林的种群之间。我们使用广义线性模型和线性判别分析来评估探索行为和形态特征，以量化种群之间的表型差异。我们使用故障时间分析来比较在新环境测试 (NET) 中探索和移动的延迟。我们的分析检测到某些运动行为（NET 期间移动的延迟）的差异，表明与来自连续森林的个体相比，来自碎片森林的个体是缓慢的探索者。我们还在支离破碎的森林种群中发现了较短的跗骨和尾巴，这归因于这些种群的体型总体减少。我们的结果表明，由城市景观破碎化驱动的环境变化正在导致人口分化，但我们不能将观察到的变化仅归因于进化过程，因为观察到的差异也可以用其他过程来解释。然而，我们认为表型差异可能有助于这个小型林下森林专家在城市支离破碎的景观中坚持下去。