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Levey DJ, Poulsen JR, Schaeffer AP, Deochand ME, Oswald JA, Robinson SK, Londoño GA. Wild mockingbirds distinguish among familiar humans. Sci Rep 2023; 13:10259. [PMID: 37355713 PMCID: PMC10290633 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-36225-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2023] [Accepted: 05/31/2023] [Indexed: 06/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Although individuals of some species appear able to distinguish among individuals of a second species, an alternative explanation is that individuals of the first species may simply be distinguishing between familiar and unfamiliar individuals of the second species. In that case, they would not be learning unique characteristics of any given heterospecific, as commonly assumed. Here we show that female Northern Mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos) can quickly learn to distinguish among different familiar humans, flushing sooner from their nest when approached by people who pose increasingly greater threats. These results demonstrate that a common small songbird has surprising cognitive abilities, which likely facilitated its widespread success in human-dominated habitats. More generally, urban wildlife may be more perceptive of differences among humans than previously imagined.
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Affiliation(s)
- Douglas J Levey
- Division of Environmental Biology, National Science Foundation, 2415 Eisenhower Ave, Alexandria, VA, 22314, USA.
| | - John R Poulsen
- Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA
| | - Andrew P Schaeffer
- Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA
| | - Michelle E Deochand
- Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA
| | - Jessica A Oswald
- Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA
- Department of Biology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, 89557, USA
| | - Scott K Robinson
- Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA
| | - Gustavo A Londoño
- Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA.
- Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Icesi, Cali, Colombia.
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Salazar SM, Hlebowicz K, Komdeur J, Korsten P. Repeatable parental risk taking across manipulated levels of predation threat: no individual variation in plasticity. Anim Behav 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.12.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/18/2023]
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3
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Corsini M, Leanza P, Rodewald AD, Sudyka J, Dhondt AA, Szulkin M. Coping with novelty across an urban mosaic: Provisioning latency increases closer to roads and is associated with species-specific reproductive success in two urban adapters. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2022; 847:157450. [PMID: 35863574 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157450] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/02/2022] [Revised: 07/11/2022] [Accepted: 07/13/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Most research on urban avian ecology has focused on population- and community-level phenomena, whereas fewer studies have examined how urbanization affects individual behavioral responses to a sudden and novel stimulus, and how those translate to fitness. We measured between-individual variation in provisioning latency in two urban adapters - great tits and blue tits - in response to an infrared camera installed in the nestbox, encountered when offspring in the nest were at the peak of food demand (9-10-days old). For each nestbox, we quantified urbanization as intensity in human activity, distance to road and proportion of impervious surface area. In both species, provisioning latency increased closer to roads. Moreover, increased provisioning latency when exposed to a novel object was associated with higher reproductive success in great tits whose nestboxes were surrounded by high amounts of impervious surface. In contrast, increased provisioning latency was consistently associated with lower reproductive success in blue tits. Our results suggest that provisioning latency changes in relation to the environment surrounding the nest, and may be context- and species-specific when exposed to a novel stimulus, such as a novel object in the nest. To better understand the role of initial behavioral responses towards novelty across an individual's lifetime and, ultimately, its impact on fitness in the urban mosaic, further research explicitly testing different behavioral responses across the entire breeding cycle in wild model systems is needed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michela Corsini
- Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw, ul. Banacha 2c, 02-097 Warsaw, Poland; Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, 14850, NY, USA.
| | - Pietro Leanza
- Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw, ul. Banacha 2c, 02-097 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Amanda D Rodewald
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, 14850, NY, USA; Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University, Ithaca, 14850, NY, USA
| | - Joanna Sudyka
- Institute of Environmental Sciences, Gronostajowa 7, 30-387 Krakow, Poland
| | - André A Dhondt
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, 14850, NY, USA; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, 14850, NY, USA
| | - Marta Szulkin
- Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw, ul. Banacha 2c, 02-097 Warsaw, Poland
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