Are birds more afraid in urban parks or cemeteries? A Latin American study contrasts with results from Europe

FEDERICOMORELLI; LUCAS LEVEAU; PETER MIKULA; IAN MACGREGOR; MARIANA LUCIA BOCELLI; SERGIO GABRIEL QUESADA ACUÑA; CESAR GONZALEZ; PABLO GUTIÉRREZ TAPIA; GABRIELA FRANZOI DRI; CARLOS A. DELGADO-V.; ALVARO GARITANO-ZAVALA; JACKELINE CAMPOS; RUBÉN ORTEGA-ÁLVAREZ; ISAIN CONTRERAS-RODRÍGUEZ; DANIELA SOUZA LÓPEZ; MARIA CECÍLIA BARBOSA TOLEDO; JUAN ANDRES SARQUIS; ALEJANDRO GIRAUDO; ADA LILIAN ECHEVARRIA; ELISA FANJUL; MARIA VALERIA MARTÍNEZ; JOSEFINA HAEDO; LUIS GONZALO CANO SANZ; YURI PEÑA; VIVIANA FERNANDEZ; VERÓNICA MARINERO; VINÍCIUS ABILHOA; RAFAEL AMORIN; CARLA SUERTEGARAY FONTANA; THAIANE WEINERT DA SILVA; SARAH SANDRI ZALEWSKI VARGAS; JUAN FERNANDO ESCOBAR IBÁÑEZ; MARÍA DOLORES JURI; SERGIO CAMÍN; LUIS MARONE; AUGUSTO JOÃO PIRATELLI; LARISSA CRISPIM; JULIETA BENITEZ

SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2023

0048-9697

The escape behaviour, measured as flight initiation distance (FID; the distance at which individuals take flight when approached by a potential predator, usually a human in the study systems), is a measure widely used to study fearfulness and risk-taking in animals. Previous studies have shown significant differences in the escape behaviour of birds inhabiting cemeteries and urban parks in European cities, where birds seem to be shyer in the latter. We collected a regional dataset of the FID of birds inhabiting cemeteries and parks across Latin America in peri-urban, suburban and urban parks and cemeteries. FIDs were recorded for eighty-one bird species. Mean species-specific FIDs ranged from 1.9 to 19.7 m for species with at least two observations (fifty-seven species). Using Bayesian regression modelling and controlling for the phylogenetic relatedness of the FID among bird species and city and country, we found that, in contrast to a recent publication from Europe, birds escape earlier in cemeteries than parks in the studied Latin American cities. FIDs were also significantly shorter in urban areas than in peri-urban areas and in areas with higher human density. Our results indicate that some idiosyncratic patterns in animal fearfulness towards humans may emerge among different geographic regions, highlighting difficulties with scaling up and application of regional findings to other ecosystems and world regions. Such differences could be associated with intrinsic differences between the pool of bird species from temperate European and mostly tropical Latin American cities, characterized by different evolutionary histories, but also with differences in the historical process of urbanization.