Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T16:43:19.653Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The emergence of tolerance of human disturbance in Neotropical birds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2019

Piotr Tryjanowski*
Affiliation:
Institute of Zoology, PoznańUniversity of Life Sciences, Wojska Polskiego 71c, 60-625 Poznań, Poland Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 00 Prague 6, Czech Republic
Jakub Z. Kosicki
Affiliation:
Department of Avian Biology & Ecology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Umultowska 89, 61-614 Poznań, Poland
Martin Hromada
Affiliation:
Laboratory and Museum of Evolutionary Ecology, Department of Ecology, Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences, University of Prešov, 17 novembra 1, 080 01 Prešov, Slovakia Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Zielona Góra, Prof. Z. Szafrana 1, 65-516Zielona Góra, Poland
Peter Mikula
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Viničná 7, 128 43 Praha 2, Czech Republic
*
*Author for correspondence: Piotr Tryjanowski, Email: piotr.tryjanowski@gmail.com

Abstract

Animals living close to human settlements more often experience disturbance, but also reduced predation risk. Because an escape response is costly, behavioural adjustments of animals in terms of increased tolerance of humans occurs and is often reported in the literature. However, most such studies have been conducted in and around long-existing cities in Europe and North America, on well-established animal populations. Here, we investigate the degree of tolerance of human disturbance across 132 bird species occurring in disturbed (small farms) and undisturbed (intact wetlands and grasslands) areas in Pantanal, Mato Grosso (Brazil), a region with only a very recent history of human-induced disturbance. We found a clear across-species trend toward higher tolerance of human disturbance in birds near farms when compared with birds in wild areas. Such a flexible and perhaps also rapid emergence of tolerance when facing small-scale and very recent human disturbance presumably involves learning and might be attributed to behavioural plasticity. The ability of birds to modify their degree of tolerance of human disturbance may play a key role in the facilitation of wildlife–human coexistence.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature cited

Alho, CJR, Lacher, TE and Gonçalves, HC (1988) Environmental degradation in the Pantanal ecosystem. BioScience 38, 164171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, D, Maechler, M, Bolker, B and Walker, S (2014) lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4. R package version 1, 123.Google Scholar
Benítez-López, A, Alkemade, R, Schipper, AM, Ingram, DJ, Verweij, PA, Eikelboom, JAJ and Huijbregts, MAJ (2017) The impact of hunting on tropical mammal and bird populations. Science 356, 180183.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blumstein, DT (2006) Developing an evolutionary ecology of fear: how life history and natural history traits affect disturbance tolerance in birds. Animal Behaviour 71, 389399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blumstein, DT (2019) What chasing birds can teach us about predation risk effects: past insights and future directions. Journal of Ornithology 160, 587592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouton, SN, Frederick, PC, Rocha, CD, Dos Santos, ATB and Bouton, TC (2005) Effects of tourist disturbance on Wood Stork nesting success and breeding behavior in the Brazilian Pantanal. Waterbirds 28, 487497.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calegaro-Marques, C and Amato, SB (2014) Urbanization breaks up host-parasite interactions: a case study on parasite community ecology of rufous-bellied thrushes (Turdus rufiventris) along a rural-urban gradient. PLoS ONE 9, e103144.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cooper, WE and Blumstein, DT (2014) Novel effects of monitoring predators on costs of fleeing and not fleeing explain flushing early in economic escape theory. Behavioral Ecology 25, 4452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Díaz, M, Møller, AP, Flensted-Jensen, E, Grim, T, Ibáñez-Álamo, JD, Jokimäki, J, Markó, G and Tryjanowski, P (2013) The geography of fear: a latitudinal gradient in anti-predator escape distances of birds across Europe. PLoS ONE 8, e64634.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dirzo, R, Young, HS, Galetti, M, Ceballos, G, Isaac, NJB and Collen, B (2014) Defaunation in the Anthropocene. Science 345, 401406.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Drummond, AJ and Rambaut, A (2007) BEAST: Bayesian evolutionary analysis by sampling trees. BMC Evolutionary Biology 7, 214.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fox, J and Weisberg, S (2016) car: companion to applied regression. https://cran.rproject.org/package=car.Google Scholar
Frid, A and Dill, L (2002) Human-caused disturbance stimuli as a form of predation risk. Conservation Ecology 6, 11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelman, A and Rubin, DB (1992) Inference from iterative simulation using multiple sequences. Statistical Science 7, 457472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hadfield, JD (2010) MCMC methods for multi-response generalised linear mixed models: the MCMCglmm R package. Journal of Statistical Software 33, 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hadfield, JD and Nakagawa, S (2010) General quantitative genetic methods for comparative biology: phylogenies, taxonomies and multi-trait models for continuous and categorical characters. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 23, 494508.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ives, AR and Helmus, MR (2011) Generalized linear mixed models for phylogenetic analyses of community structure. Ecological Monographs 81, 511525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jetz, W, Thomas, GH, Joy, JB, Hartmann, K and Mooers, AO (2012) The global diversity of birds in space and time. Nature 491, 444448.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lindenfors, P, Revell, LJ and Nunn, CL (2010) Sexual dimorphism in primate aerobic capacity: a phylogenetic test. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 23, 11831194.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McKinney, ML (2002) Urbanization, biodiversity, and conservation: the impacts of urbanization on native species are poorly studied, but educating a highly urbanized human population about these impacts can greatly improve species conservation in all ecosystems. BioScience 52, 883890.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mikula, P, Díaz, M, Albrecht, T, Jokimäki, J, Kaisanlahti-Jokimäki, M-L, Kroitero, G, Møller, AP, Tryjanowski, P, Yosef, R and Hromada, M (2018) Adjusting risk-taking to the annual cycle of long-distance migratory birds. Scientific Reports 8, 13989.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Møller, AP, Díaz, M, Flensted-Jensen, E, Grim, T, Ibáñez-Álamo, JD, Jokimäki, J, Mänd, R, Markó, G and Tryjanowski, P (2012) High urban population density of birds reflects their timing of urbanization. Oecologia 170, 867875.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nakagawa, S and Schielzeth, H (2013) A general and simple method for obtaining R2 from generalized linear mixed-effects models. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 4, 133142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neter, J, Kutner, MH, Nachtsheim, CJ and Wasserman, W (1996) Applied Linear Statistical Models. Chicago, IL: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.Google Scholar
Ortega-Álvarez, R and MacGregor-Fors, I (2011) Spreading the word: the ecology of urban birds outside the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. The Auk 128, 415418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pulliam, H (1973) On the advantages of flocking. Journal of Theoretical Biology 38, 419422.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
R Development Core Team (2019). A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.Google Scholar
Richards, P and VanWey, L (2015) Where deforestation leads to urbanization: how resource extraction is leading to urban growth in the Brazilian Amazon. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 105, 806823.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roberts, G (1996) Why individual vigilance declines as group size increases. Animal Behaviour 51, 10771086.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samia, DSM, Nakagawa, S, Nomura, F, Rangel, TF and Blumstein, DT (2015) Increased tolerance to humans among disturbed wildlife. Nature Communications 6, 8877.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Samia, DSM, Blumstein, DT, Díaz, M, Grim, T, Ibáñez-Álamo, JD, Jokimäki, J, Tätte, K, Markó, G, Tryjanowski, P and Møller, AP (2017) Rural-urban differences in escape behavior of European birds across a latitudinal gradient. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 5, 66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silva, JMC, Prasad, S and Diniz-Filho, JAF (2017) The impact of deforestation, urbanization, public investments, and agriculture on human welfare in the Brazilian Amazonia. Land Use Policy 65, 135142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sol, D, Lapiedra, O and González-Lagos, C (2013) Behavioural adjustments for a life in the city. Animal Behaviour 85, 11011112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sol, D, González-Lagos, C, Moreira, D, Maspons, J and Lapiedra, O (2014) Urbanisation tolerance and the loss of avian diversity. Ecology Letters 17, 942950.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stankowich, T and Blumstein, DT (2005) Fear in animals: a meta-analysis and review of risk assessment. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 272, 26272634.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stewart, ID and Oke, TR (2012) Local climate zones for urban temperature studies. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 93, 18791900.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Symonds, MRE, Weston, MA, van Dongen, WFD, Lill, A, Robinson, RW and Guay, P-J (2016) Time since urbanization but not encephalisation is associated with increased tolerance of human proximity in birds. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 4, 117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tatner, P and Bryant, DM (1986) Flight cost of a small passerine measured using doubly labeled water: implications for energetics. The Auk 103, 169180.Google Scholar
Tryjanowski, P, Skórka, P, Sparks, TH, Biaduń, W, Brauze, T, Hetmański, T, Martyka, R, Indykiewicz, P, Myczko, Ł, Kunysz, P, Kawa, P, Czyż, S, Czechowski, P, Polakowski, M, Zduniak, P, Jerzak, L, Janiszewski, T, Goławski, A, Duduś, L, Nowakowski, JJ, Wuczyński, A and Wysocki, D (2015) Urban and rural habitats differ in number and type of bird feeders and in bird species consuming supplementary food. Environmental Science and Pollution Research 22, 1509715103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zalles, V, Hansen, MC, Potapov, PV, Stehman, SV, Tyukavina, A, Pickens, A, Song, XP, Adusei, B, Okpa, C, Aguilar, R, John, N and Chavez, S (2019) Near doubling of Brazil’s intensive row crop area since 2000. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 116, 428435.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: File

Tryjanowski et al. supplementary material

Tryjanowski et al. supplementary material 1

Download Tryjanowski et al. supplementary material(File)
File 94 KB
Supplementary material: File

Tryjanowski et al. supplementary material

Tryjanowski et al. supplementary material 2

Download Tryjanowski et al. supplementary material(File)
File 2.1 KB
Supplementary material: File

Tryjanowski et al. supplementary material

Tryjanowski et al. supplementary material 3

Download Tryjanowski et al. supplementary material(File)
File 65.3 KB