]New behavioral traits are often the first response of animals to changing environmental conditions. As cities increasingly become habitats of wildlife, researchers have studied behavioral changes in birds and examined how urbanization impacts parental care behavior of male song sparrows. The team found that in cities, where male song sparrows are known to be more aggressive than in rural surroundings, male birds visited nests more often than rural conspecifics visited countryside nests. The study is published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
]New behavioral traits are often the first response of animals to changing environmental conditions. As cities increasingly become habitats of wildlife, researchers have studied behavioral changes in birds and examined how urbanization impacts parental care behavior of male song sparrows. The team found that in cities, where male song sparrows are known to be more aggressive than in rural surroundings, male birds visited nests more often than rural conspecifics visited countryside nests.
"Male songbirds in temperate zones are thought to reduce parental care when they are more aggressive. Yet in this study, we show that urban male song sparrows provided more care for their young," said Dr. Samuel Lane, currently a postdoctoral research fellow at North Dakota State University and lead author of the study completed in the Sewall Lab at Virginia Tech.
If urban male songbirds spend more time securing their territory, it would imply that they have less time to invest into the care of their offspring. Therefore, the researchers expected that more aggressive urban male sparrows were sacrificingfor territorial aggression, which in turn was expected to have a negative impact on the survival of their young. To test their thesis, they studied six sites in southwest Virginia characterized by recent urban sprawl over four breeding seasons.
Lane and colleagues observed that urban males visited their nests significantly more often than their rural fellows. They also began feeding nestlings earlier in the day."It turns out urban males are super males—able to defend their territories and care for their young," Lane said.The researchers also found that hatching and fledging success was significantly higher in urban habitats—despite certain challenges city birds faced.
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