Personality and urbanization: behavioural traits and DRD4 SNP830 polymorphisms in great tits in Barcelona city

Riyahi, Sepand; Björklund, Mats; Mateos‐González, Fernando; Senar, Juan Carlos

doi:10.1007/s10164-016-0496-2

Cited by 50 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Altogether, our data suggest that urban great tits, especially males, have a more proactive coping strategy when dealing with stressful conditions than rural birds. This finding is in line with studies showing that urban great tits are more explorative and less neophobic than their rural counterparts (Tryjanowski et al, 2016;Charmantier et al, 2017;Riyahi et al, 2017), and display shorter flight initiation distances (Møller, 2008(Møller, , 2012, which represent other aspects of the proactive coping strategy. Findings on the great tit are also in line with data from other bird species, for which urban populations have also been found to display proactive behaviors (Evans et al, 2010;Carrete and Tella, 2017), but these studies compared few populations (Miranda et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Proactive individuals, for instance, more rapidly discover and use new food resources (van Overveld and Matthysen, 2010), and are less afraid of novel objects or environments than reactive birds (Tryjanowski et al, 2016;Charmantier et al, 2017;Riyahi et al, 2017), which could help urban dwellers to take profit of the new feeding opportunities that a city can provide (e.g., Fisher and Hinde, 1949). Our study therefore implies that urban birds may adapt to human disturbance by a process of local adaptation, as suggested previously (Partecke et al, 2006;Sol et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To acquire a robust insight into the relationship between urbanization and distress behavior, we assayed three different distress behaviors (distress calling rate, pecking rate, and breath rate) in seven replicate pairs of urban and rural/forest populations across Europe. Previous work on this species has revealed many differences between urban and rural great tits in terms of morphology (Horak et al, 1995;Senar et al, 2014;Biard et al, 2017), physiology (Andersson et al, 2015;Salmón et al, 2016;Toledo et al, 2016), genetics (Björklund et al, 2010;Riyahi et al, 2015), life-history (Berressem et al, 1983;Schmidt and Einloft-Achenbach, 1984;Isaksson and Andersson, 2007;Hedblom and Soderstrom, 2012;Bailly et al, 2015;Vaugoyeau et al, 2016;Charmantier et al, 2017), population dynamics (Horak and Lebreton, 1998), and behavior (Slabbekoorn and Peet, 2003;Salaberria and Gil, 2010;Riyahi et al, 2017). Urban great tits have been found to be more explorative and less neophobic than rural tits (Tryjanowski et al, 2016;Charmantier et al, 2017;Riyahi et al, 2017), to display shorter flight initiation distances (Møller et al, 2015), and to show a higher problem solving performance than rural birds (Preiszner et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Urban Great Tits (Parus major) Show Higher Distress Calling and Pecking Rates than Rural Birds across Europe

et al. 2017

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Environmental change associated with urbanization is considered one of the major threats to biodiversity. Some species nevertheless seem to thrive in the urban areas, probably associated with selection for phenotypes that match urban habitats. Previous research defined different "copying styles" in distress behavior during the handling of birds. These behaviors vary along a continuum from "proactive" to "reactive" copers. By studying avian distress behaviors we aimed to broaden our understanding of the relationship between coping styles and urbanization. Using a large-scale comparative study of seven paired rural and urban sites across Europe, we assayed distress behaviors during handling of urban and rural-dwelling populations of the great tit Parus major. We detected no consistent pairwise differences in breath rate between urban and rural habitats. However, urban great tits displayed more distress calling (fear screams) and higher pecking rate (handling aggression) than rural birds. These findings suggest that urban great tits have a more proactive coping strategy when dealing with stressful conditions. This finding is in line with previous studies implying that urban great tits are more explorative, less neophobic, and display shorter flight distances than their rural counterparts, representing further aspects of the same "proactive," coping strategy. Future research should investigate whether reported differences in distress behavior are due to local adaption caused by natural selection or due to phenotypic plasticity.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Urban Great Tits (Parus major) Show Higher Distress Calling and Pecking Rates than Rural Birds across Europe

et al. 2017

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“…Our variables describing the behaviour in novel environment were more repeatable on shorter timescales, which is in line with the findings of several other studies (Dingemanse et al, ; Michelangeli, Chapple, & Wong, ; Riyahi et al, ). The repeatability of general behaviour was close to zero and not significant, but due to the low sample size for birds with freezing or panicking behaviour this result should be considered with caution.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

A behavioural trait displayed in an artificial novel environment correlates with dispersal in a wild bird

et al. 2020

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Behaviour shown in a novel environment has important consequences for fitness in many animals. It is widely studied with standard tests by placing the individuals into an unfamiliar experimental area, that is the so‐called open‐field or novel environment test. The biological relevance of traits measured under such artificial conditions is questionable and could be validated by establishing a link with variables that truly reflect exploration in the wild. Our aim in this field study was to characterize behaviours measured in an artificial novel environment (an aviary) and assess the biological relevance of them in the collared flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis). Therefore, we measured the repeatability and the association of multiple behavioural traits, as well as their relationship with breeding dispersal (that reflects exploration in the wild). We found evidence for non‐zero repeatability for number of crosses between the quarters, number of hops and perching latency in the aviary, and these repeatabilities were high when assessed at shorter time windows. Additionally, birds with short perching latency in the novel environment were more likely residents and bred closer to their breeding nest box in the previous year, which may suggest that latency to perch is connected to dispersal in the wild. In sum, our results indicate that behaviours assessed in an artificial environment are individual‐specific at least on smaller timescales, and at least, one component of these behaviours is correlated with an ecologically relevant trait.

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“…In contrast, the threat‐specific risk‐taking hypothesis predicts the within‐habitat “breakdown” of this phenotypic correlation, because responses to humans and predators should be adjusted independently from each other to the fine‐scale variation of danger in the microhabitat of each individual. Several species exhibit such urban breakdown of correlation between risk‐taking behaviors, for example, between neophobia and exploration (Riyahi, Björklund, Mateos‐Gonzalez, & Senar, ) or between intraspecific aggression and risk‐taking toward humans (Scales et al, ). Two recent studies found that non‐urban birds that were more tolerant of humans were also more risk‐taking in response to natural predators, while urban conspecifics did not show such correlation (Carrete & Tella, ; Myers & Hyman, ), supporting the “threat‐specific risk‐taking” hypothesis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Great tits take greater risk toward humans and sparrowhawks in urban habitats than in forests

et al. 2019

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Urban animals often take more risk toward humans than their non‐urban conspecifics do, but it is unclear how urbanization affects behavior toward non‐human predators. Responses to humans and non‐human predators may covary due to common mechanisms enforcing a phenotypic correlation. However, while increased tolerance toward humans may be advantageous for urban animals, reduced vigilance toward non‐human predators that can pose actual threat may be costly. Therefore, urban animals may benefit from showing specific responses to different threat levels, such as humans versus non‐human predators, or hostile versus non‐hostile humans. To test these alternatives, we compared responses (latencies to return to nest) of urban and forest‐breeding great tits (Parus major) to familiar hostile and unfamiliar humans as well as one of their common predators, the sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus). We found that urban birds were more risk‐taking toward both humans and sparrowhawk than forest birds. However, responses to sparrowhawk did not correlate with responses to humans either within or across habitats. This suggests that higher risk‐taking of urban compared to forest‐dwelling great tits toward sparrowhawk may be threat‐specific response to lower predation risk rather than a spillover effect of increased tolerance to humans. Furthermore, birds responded similarly to unfamiliar and familiar (potentially dangerous) humans in both habitats, suggesting that great tits may not adjust their risk‐taking to the threat represented by individual humans. These findings indicate that urban birds may flexibly adjust their risk‐taking to certain, but not all, types of threat.

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Personality and urbanization: behavioural traits and DRD4 SNP830 polymorphisms in great tits in Barcelona city

Cited by 50 publications

References 51 publications

Urban Great Tits (Parus major) Show Higher Distress Calling and Pecking Rates than Rural Birds across Europe

Urban Great Tits (Parus major) Show Higher Distress Calling and Pecking Rates than Rural Birds across Europe

A behavioural trait displayed in an artificial novel environment correlates with dispersal in a wild bird

Great tits take greater risk toward humans and sparrowhawks in urban habitats than in forests

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