Animal Behavioral Responses to the COVID-19 Quietus

Montgomery, Robert A.; Raupp, Jamie; Parkhurst, Magdalena

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2020.12.008

Cited by 41 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…(1) Did urban birds become more common in response to human-empty cities? It can be predicted that decreased human presence and disturbance allowed animals to occupy spaces that used to be above their fear tolerance thresholds [5,34,35]. Therefore, we expected a higher occurrence in 2020 compared to the historical records for the same urban areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…As a result of the human lockdown, unusual observations of animals in urban areas worldwide have flooded the media and social networks planting in the social imaginary the idea that 'nature is getting back its space' (sensu [34]). Although plausible, this idea is, in most cases, based on anecdotal records, sometimes false [34,35], without any quantitative scientific investigation supporting such claim [24,33].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rapid behavioural response of urban birds to COVID-19 lockdown

et al. 2021

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Biodiversity is threatened by the growth of urban areas. However, it is still poorly understood how animals can cope with and adapt to these rapid and dramatic transformations of natural environments. The COVID-19 pandemic provides us with a unique opportunity to unveil the mechanisms involved in this process. Lockdown measures imposed in most countries are causing an unprecedented reduction of human activities, giving us an experimental setting to assess the effects of our lifestyle on biodiversity. We studied the birds' response to the population lockdown by using more than 126 000 bird records collected by a citizen science project in northeastern Spain. We compared the occurrence and detectability of birds during the spring 2020 lockdown with baseline data from previous years in the same urban areas and dates. We found that birds did not increase their probability of occurrence in urban areas during the lockdown, refuting the hypothesis that nature has recovered its space in human-emptied urban areas. However, we found an increase in bird detectability, especially during early morning, suggesting a rapid change in the birds’ daily routines in response to quieter and less crowded cities. Therefore, urban birds show high behavioural plasticity to rapidly adjust to novel environmental conditions, such as those imposed by the COVID-19.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid behavioural response of urban birds to COVID-19 lockdown

et al. 2021

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show abstract

“…Did urban birds become more common in response to human empty cities? It can be predicted that decreased human presence and disturbance allowed animals to occupy spaces that used to be above their fear tolerance thresholds [5,34,35]. Therefore, we expected a higher occurrence in 2020 compared to the historical records for the same urban areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Product of the human lockdown, unusual observations of animals in urban areas worldwide have flooded the media and social networks planting in the social imaginary the idea that “nature is getting back its space” ( sensu [34]). Although plausible, this idea is, in most cases, based on anecdotal records, sometimes false [34,35], without any quantitative scientific investigation supporting such claim [24,33].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid behavioural response of urban birds to COVID-19 lockdown

Gordo

Brotons

Herrando

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Biodiversity is threatened by the current exponential growth of urban areas. However, it is still poorly understood how animals can cope with and adapt to these rapid and dramatic transformations of natural environments. The COVID-19 pandemic provides us with a unique opportunity to unveil the adaptive mechanisms involved in this process. Lockdown measures imposed in most countries are causing an unprecedented reduction of human activities giving us an experimental setting to assess the effects of our lifestyle on biodiversity. We studied the birds’ response to the Spanish population lockdown by using more than 200,000 bird records collected by a citizen science project. We compared the occurrence and detectability of birds during the spring 2020 lockdown with baseline data from previous years in the same urban areas and dates. We found that birds did not increase their probability of occurrence in urban areas during the lockdown, refuting the hypothesis that nature has recovered its space in human emptied urban areas. However, we found an increase in bird detectability, especially during early morning, suggesting a rapid change in the birds’ daily routines in response to quitter and less crowded cities. In conclusion, urban birds show high behavioral plasticity to rapidly adapt to novel environmental conditions, as those imposed by the COVID-19.

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“…Furthermore, infection avoidance can trigger cascading effects on other species and the environment. For instance, lockdowns reduced greenhouse gas emissions and caused behavioral changes in various animal species (Bates et al, 2021;Montgomery et al, 2021). But humans are not the only species that experiences infection outbreaks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%