Quantifying the urban gradient: A practical method for broad measurements

Seress, Gábor; Lipovits, Ágnes; Bókony, Veronika; Czúni, László

doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2014.07.010

Cited by 94 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Natural habitats were either forest or rural areas, but we refer to them as rural habitats for simplicity. To quantify the degree of urbanization in each locality we used aerial images from Google Maps following the methods previously described to assess the effect of the degree of urbanization on wild bird populations (Seress et al, 2014;Vincze et al, 2017). Briefly, each locality was represented by a 1 × 1 km 2 rectangular area around the birds' capture site.…”

Section: Study Areas and Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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: Study Areas and Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2017

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“…In this context we used the urbanization score proposed by Seress et al (2014) for the first time. We aimed on covering the response of (a) the alpha diversity of the bees (in terms of species richness and species occurences on the investigated sites), (b) the beta diversity of the bees (in terms of species turnover along the environmental gradients), and (c) the individual bee species on the environmental parameters.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling urban habitat and matrix effects on wild bee species

Fischer

Eichfeld

Kowarik

et al. 2016

PeerJ

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In face of a dramatic decline of wild bee species in many rural landscapes, potential conservation functions of urban areas gain importance. Yet effects of urbanization on pollinators, and in particular on wild bees, remain ambiguous and not comprehensively understood. This is especially true for amenity grassland and extensively managed wastelands within large-scale residential housing areas. Using Berlin as a study region, we aimed to investigate (a) if these greenspaces are accepted by wild bee assemblages as foraging habitats; (b) how assemblage structure of bees and individual bee species are affected by different habitat (e.g., management, flower density) and urban matrix variables (e.g., isolation, urbanization); and (c) to what extent grassland restoration can promote bees in urban environments. In summer 2012, we collected 62 bee species belonging to more than 20% of the taxa known for Berlin. Urbanization significantly affected species composition of bees; 18 species were affiliated to different levels of urbanization. Most bee species were not affected by any of the environmental variables tested, and urbanization had a negative effect only for one bee species. Further, we determined that restoration of diverse grasslands positively affected bee species richnesss in urban environments. We conclude that differently structured and managed greenspaces in large-scale housing areas can provide additional foraging habitats and refuges for pollinators. This supports approaches towards a biodiversity friendly management within urban regions and may be of particular importance given that anthropogenic pressure is increasing in many rural landscapes.

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“…We calculated urbanization scores using a technique validated by Seress and colleagues, which uses aerial images to quantify land-cover in a 1 km 2 area around each study site (Seress et al, 2014;Davies and Sewall, 2016; Figure 1). Larger PC scores from this analysis indicate higher abundance of buildings and paved surfaces, and lower abundance of vegetation.…”

Section: Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Briefly, we diluted samples 30 times, added steroid displacement reagent at 0.5% of plasma volume, randomly assigned samples to FIGURE 1 | Birds in this study were collected from one urban site (number 1) and one rural site (number 9, above) along an urban rural gradient within 15 km of Blacksburg, VA, USA. The urbanization index for each site was calculated following Seress et al (2014); larger PC scores on the y-axis indicate higher abundance of buildings and paved surfaces, and lower abundance of vegetation.…”

Section: Plasma Testosteronementioning

confidence: 99%

Two Neural Measures Differ between Urban and Rural Song Sparrows after Conspecific Song Playback

Sewall

Davies

2017

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Urbanization is a critical form of environmental change that can affect the physiology and behavior of wild animals and, notably, birds. One behavioral difference between birds living in urban and rural habitats is that urban males show elevated boldness or territorial aggression in response to simulated social challenge. This pattern has been described in several populations of song sparrow, Melospiza melodia. Such behavioral differences must be underpinned by differences in the brain, yet little work has explored how urbanization and neural function may be interrelated. We explored the relationship between urbanization and neural activation within a network of brain regions, collectively called the social behavior network, which contributes to the regulation of territorial aggression. Specifically, we captured free-living, territorial male song sparrows by playing them conspecific songs for 6-11 min, and then collected their brains. We estimated recent neural activation, as indicated by the immediate early gene FOS, and measured levels of a neuropeptide, arginine vasotocin (AVT), which is involved in the regulation of social behavior. Based on previous studies we expected urban males, which are generally more territorially aggressive, to have lower FOS expression in a node of the social behavior network implicated in regulating territoriality, the lateral septum (LS). Additionally, we expected urban males to have lower AVT expression in a brain region involved in the regulation of sociality, the medial bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTm). We found that, compared to rural males, urban male song sparrows did have lower FOS expression in the LS. This pattern suggests that lower neural activation in the LS could contribute to behavioral adjustments to urbanization in male song sparrows. Additionally, counter to our predictions, urban male song sparrows had higher AVT-like immunoreactivity in the BSTm. Future work building upon these findings is needed to determine the causal role of such neural differences across rural and urban habitats. Understanding the mechanisms impacted by urbanization will inform our understanding of the reversibility and consequences of this form of habitat change.

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Quantifying the urban gradient: A practical method for broad measurements

Cited by 94 publications

References 44 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

Disentangling urban habitat and matrix effects on wild bee species

Two Neural Measures Differ between Urban and Rural Song Sparrows after Conspecific Song Playback

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