1
|
Hofmann G, Mettke-Hofmann C. Watch out! High vigilance at small waterholes when alone in open trees. PLoS One 2024; 19:e0304257. [PMID: 38959233 PMCID: PMC11221651 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0304257] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2024] [Accepted: 05/09/2024] [Indexed: 07/05/2024] Open
Abstract
An animal's environment contains many risks causing animals to scan their environment for potential predators and threats from conspecifics. How much time they invest in such vigilance depends on environmental and social factors. Most vigilance studies have been conducted in a foraging context with little known about vigilance in other contexts. Here we investigated vigilance of Gouldian finches at waterholes considering environmental and social factors. Gouldian finches are colour polymorphic with two main head colours in both sexes co-occurring in the same population, black-headed and red-headed. Data collection was done on birds sitting in trees surrounding waterholes by measuring the frequency of head movements, which reflects how frequently they change their field of view, i.e., scan different areas in their environment. A higher frequency generally reflects higher vigilance. Gouldian finches had a higher frequency of head movements when at small waterholes and when sitting in open, leafless trees. Moreover, head movements were higher when birds were alone in the tree as compared to groups of birds. Finally, birds in same head colour morph groups had a higher frequency of head movements than birds in mixed head colour groups. Results indicate heightened vigilance with increased perception of predation risk (small waterholes, open exposed perch, when alone) but that social vigilance also played a role (group composition) with particularly the aggressive red-headed birds being more vigilant when together with other red-headed birds. Future research should investigate the effect of smaller waterholes as global warming will cause smaller waterholes to become more common for longer periods of time, which can increase stress in the birds.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
| | - Claudia Mettke-Hofmann
- School of Biological & Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
When to Return to Normal? Temporal Dynamics of Vigilance in Four Situations. BIRDS 2022. [DOI: 10.3390/birds4010001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Vigilance is an important behaviour to monitor the environment from detecting predators to tracking conspecifics. However, little is known about how vigilance changes over time either without disturbance (vigilance decrement) or after a change occurred. The time course of vigilance can indicate how animals perceive a situation and the potential mechanism used to deal with it. I investigated the time course of vigilance in Gouldian Finches in four situations (familiar environment, two changed environments–novel object at a neutral location (exploration trial) or above the feeder (neophobia trial), novel environment). The frequency of head movements was assessed in four consecutive 15-min blocks in same sex pairs with a high frequency generally seen as indicative of high vigilance. Vigilance decreased over time in the familiar situation indicating vigilance decrement with a similar time course in the exploration trial. Vigilance was consistently high in the neophobia trial and only returned to normal in the last block. Finally, vigilance plummeted in the novel environment and did not return to normal within an hour. Results suggest that perceived threats affected vigilance and that information gathering reduced uncertainty allowing vigilance to return to normal levels but with different time courses depending on the situation.
Collapse
|
3
|
Li H, Crihfield C, Feng Y, Gaje G, Guzman E, Heckman T, Mellis A, Moore L, Romo Bechara N, Sanchez S, Whittington S, Wolf JG, Garshong R, Morales K, Petric R, Zarecky LA, Schug MD. The Weekend Effect on Urban Bat Activity Suggests Fine Scale Human-Induced Bat Movements. Animals (Basel) 2020; 10:ani10091636. [PMID: 32932924 PMCID: PMC7552248 DOI: 10.3390/ani10091636] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2020] [Revised: 09/07/2020] [Accepted: 09/08/2020] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
Simple Summary On weekends, people do things differently from weekdays, such as dining at a restaurant, going to a night club, attending a concert or a sporting event, or simply staying up late. These leisure activities in the city can change the environment people live in and can hurt wildlife that also lives in the same city. We recorded bats in the city center and in the city periphery and compared how active bats were. We found that in the city center, bats were less active on weekends than weekdays. The opposite pattern was found in the city periphery. It is possible that bats moved from the city center to the city periphery on weekends. Thus, continuous greenways are important to facilitate bat movements and avoid human–wildlife conflict. City planners can add new parks and/or preserve old-growth vegetation to form the center-to-periphery greenways. Abstract In the urban environment, wildlife faces novel human disturbances in unique temporal patterns. The weekend effect describes that human activities on weekends trigger changes in the environment and impact wildlife negatively. Reduced occurrence, altered behaviors, and/or reduced fitness have been found in birds, ungulates, and meso-carnivores due to the weekend effect. We aimed to investigate if urban bat activity would differ on weekends from weekdays. We analyzed year-round bat acoustic monitoring data collected from two sites near the city center and two sites in the residential area/park complex in the city periphery. We constructed generalized linear models and found that bat activity was significantly lower on weekends as compared to weekdays during spring and summer at the site in the open space near the city center. In contrast, during the same seasons, the sites in the city periphery showed increased bat activity on weekends. Hourly bat activity overnight suggested that bats might move from the city center to the periphery on weekends. We demonstrated the behavioral adaptability in urban wildlife for co-existing with human. We recommend that urban planning should implement practices such as adding new greenspaces and/or preserving old-growth vegetation to form continuous greenways from the city center to the city periphery as corridors to facilitate bat movements and reduce possible human-wildlife conflict.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Han Li
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +01-254-733-2891
| | - Chase Crihfield
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | - Yashi Feng
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | - Gabriella Gaje
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | - Elissa Guzman
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | - Talia Heckman
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | - Anna Mellis
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | - Lauren Moore
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | - Nayma Romo Bechara
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | - Sydney Sanchez
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | - Samantha Whittington
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | - Joseph Gazing Wolf
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA
| | - Reuben Garshong
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | - Kristina Morales
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | - Radmila Petric
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| | | | - Malcolm D. Schug
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412, USA; (C.C.); (Y.F.); (G.G.); (E.G.); (T.H.); (A.M.); (L.M.); (N.R.B.); (S.S.); (S.W.); (J.G.W.); (R.G.); (K.M.); (R.P.); (M.D.S.)
| |
Collapse
|