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Repeatability and degree of territorial aggression differs among urban and rural great tits (Parus major).

ABSTRACT: Animals in urban habitats face many novel selection pressures such as increased human population densities and human disturbance. This is predicted to favour bolder and more aggressive individuals together with greater flexibility in behaviour. Previous work has focussed primarily on studying these traits in captive birds and has shown increased aggression and reduced consistency between traits (behavioural syndromes) in birds from urban populations. However, personality (consistency within a behavioural trait) has not been well studied in the wild. Here we tested whether urban free-living male great tits show greater territorial aggression than rural counterparts. We also tested predictions that both behavioural syndromes and personality would show lower consistency in urban populations. We found that urban populations were more aggressive than rural populations and urban birds appeared to show lower levels of individual behavioural repeatability (personality) as predicted. However, we found no effect of urbanisation on behavioural syndromes (correlations between multiple behavioural traits). Our results indicate that urban environments may favour individuals which exhibit increased territorial aggression and greater within-trait flexibility which may be essential to success in holding urban territories. Determining how urban environments impact key fitness traits will be important in predicting how animals cope with ongoing urbanisation.

SUBMITTER: Hardman SI

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5864914 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Urban environment shortens telomere length in nestling great tits, Parus major.

Project description:Urban environments are expanding rapidly, and with urbanization come both challenges and opportunities for wildlife. Challenges include combating the anthropogenic disturbances such as light, noise and air pollution and lower availability of natural food sources. The benefits are many, including the availability of anthropogenic food sources, breeding boxes and warmer temperatures. Thus, depending on the context, urbanization can have both positive and negative effects on fitness related traits. It is well known that early-life conditions can have lifelong implications on fitness; little is however known about development in urban environments. We reciprocally cross-fostered urban and rural nestling great tits (Parus major L.) to study how growing up in an urban versus rural habitat affected telomere length (TL)-a suggested biomarker of longevity. We show, for the first time, that growing up in an urban environment significantly shortens TL, independently of natal origin (i.e. urban or rural). This implies that the urban environment imposes a challenge to developing birds, with potentially irreversible effects on lifespan.

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Affymetrix SNP array data for wild Dutch great tits (Parus major)

Project description:The great tit is a widely studied passerine bird species in ecology that, in the past decades, has provided important insights into speciation, phenology, behavior and microevolution. After completion of the great tit genome sequence, a customized high density 650k SNP array was developed enabling more detailed genomic studies in this species.

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Avian Poxvirus Infection in Polish Great Tits (Parus Major).

Project description:Introduction:Avian poxvirus infections are widespread in the domestic poultry population but are also reported in wild birds. In poultry, these infections cause significant economic losses, while wild birds may be a reservoir for poxvirus which affects breeding poultry. However, wild birds may also exhibit characteristic anatomopathological changes. This study concerns the infection of wild-living great tits (Parus major) with the avian poxvirus in Poland. Material and Methods:Samples of internal organs and skin collected from great tits were homogenised and total cellular DNA was isolated. In PCR, the primers complementary to gene encoding the core protein 4b of the HP44 strain of fowl poxvirus (FPV) were used. Results:After electrophoresis in 2% agarose gel, the PCR product of 578 bp characteristic for FPV was obtained in DNA samples isolated from skin lesions and the heart. The analysis of the nucleotide sequence of the virus strain showed 99% similarity to many poxviruses previously isolated from great tits and other free birds at various sites in the world. Conclusions:This paper is the first clinically documented evidence obtained in laboratory conditions of avian poxvirus cases in great tits in Poland.

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Great tits (Parus major) reduce caterpillar damage in commercial apple orchards.

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The ontogeny of social networks in wild great tits (<i>Parus major</i>).

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Behavioral responses to conspecific mobbing calls are predator-specific in great tits (Parus major).

Project description:When facing a predator, animals need to perform an appropriate antipredator behavior such as escaping or mobbing to prevent predation. Many bird species exhibit distinct mobbing behaviors and vocalizations once a predator has been detected. In some species, mobbing calls transmit information about predator type, size, and threat, which can be assessed by conspecifics. We recently found that great tits (Parus major) produce longer D calls with more elements and longer intervals between elements when confronted with a sparrowhawk, a high-threat predator, in comparison to calls produced in front of a less-threatening tawny owl. In the present study, we conducted a playback experiment to investigate if these differences in mobbing calls elicit different behavioral responses in adult great tits. We found tits to have a longer latency time and to keep a greater distance to the speaker when sparrowhawk mobbing calls were broadcast. This suggests that tits are capable of decoding information about predator threat in conspecific mobbing calls. We further found a tendency for males to approach faster and closer than females, which indicates that males are willing to take higher risks in a mobbing context than females.

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Environmental and parental influences on offspring health and growth in great tits (Parus major).

Project description:Sexual selection requires both that there is heritable variation in traits related to fitness, and that either some of this variation is linked to traits of the parents, and/or that there are direct benefits of choosing particular individuals as mates. This suggests that if direct benefits are important offspring performance should be predicted by traits of the rearing adults. But if indirect benefits are more significant offspring performance should be predicted by traits of the adults at the nest-of-origin. We conducted cross-fostering experiments in great tits (Parus major) over four years, in two of which we manipulated environmental conditions by providing supplemental food. In a third year, some nestlings were directly supplemented with carotenoids. Nestlings in broods whose rearing adults received supplemental food were heavier and had improved immune responses even when controlling for body mass. Nestling immune function was related to measures of the yellow plumage color of both the rearing male and the putative father. Nestling body mass was influenced by the coloration of both the rearing female and the genetic mother. Our results suggest that features of both their social and putative genetic parents influence nestling health and growth. From this it would appear that females could be gaining both direct and indirect benefits through mate choice of male plumage traits and that it would be possible for males to similarly gain through mate choice of female traits.

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Genetic Correlates of Individual Differences in Sleep Behavior of Free-Living Great Tits (Parus major).

Project description:Within populations, free-living birds display considerable variation in observable sleep behaviors, reflecting dynamic interactions between individuals and their environment. Genes are expected to contribute to repeatable between-individual differences in sleep behaviors, which may be associated with individual fitness. We identified and genotyped polymorphisms in nine candidate genes for sleep, and measured five repeatable sleep behaviors in free-living great tits (Parus major), partly replicating a previous study in blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus). Microsatellites in the CLOCK and NPAS2 clock genes exhibited an association with sleep duration relative to night length, and morning latency to exit the nest box, respectively. Furthermore, microsatellites in the NPSR1 and PCSK2 genes associated with relative sleep duration and proportion of time spent awake at night, respectively. Given the detection rate of associations in the same models run with random markers instead of candidate genes, we expected two associations to arise by chance. The detection of four associations between candidate genes and sleep, however, suggests that clock genes, a clock-related gene, or a gene involved in the melanocortin system, could play key roles in maintaining phenotypic variation in sleep behavior in avian populations. Knowledge of the genetic architecture underlying sleep behavior in the wild is important because it will enable ecologists to assess the evolution of sleep in response to selection.

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Environmental harshness does not affect the propensity for social learning in great tits, Parus major.

Project description:According to the harsh environment hypothesis, natural selection should favour cognitive mechanisms to overcome environmental challenges. Tests of this hypothesis to date have largely focused on asocial learning and memory, thus failing to account for the spread of information via social means. Tests in specialized food-hoarding birds have shown strong support for the effects of environmental harshness on both asocial and social learning. Whether the hypothesis applies to non-specialist foraging species remains largely unexplored. We evaluated the relative importance of social learning across a known harshness gradient by testing generalist great tits, Parus major, from high (harsh)- and low (mild)-elevation populations in two social learning tasks. We showed that individuals use social learning to find food in both colour-associative and spatial foraging tasks and that individuals differed consistently in their use of social learning. However, we did not detect a difference in the use or speed of implementing socially observed information across the elevational gradient. Our results do not support predictions of the harsh environment hypothesis suggesting that context-dependent costs and benefits as well as plasticity in the use of social information may play an important role in the use of social learning across environments. Finally, this study adds to the accumulating evidence that the harsh environment hypothesis appears to have more pronounced effects on specialists compared to generalist species.

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Are comparable studies really comparable? Suggestions from a problem-solving experiment on urban and rural great tits.

Project description:Performance in tests of various cognitive abilities has often been compared, both within and between species. In intraspecific comparisons, habitat effects on cognition has been a popular topic, frequently with an underlying assumption that urban animals should perform better than their rural conspecifics. In this study, we tested problem-solving ability in great tits Parus major, in a string-pulling and a plug-opening test. Our aim was to compare performance between urban and rural great tits, and to compare their performance with previously published problem solving studies. Our great tits perfomed better in string-pulling than their conspecifics in previous studies (solving success: 54%), and better than their close relative, the mountain chickadee Poecile gambeli, in the plug-opening test (solving success: 70%). Solving latency became shorter over four repeated sessions, indicating learning abilities, and showed among-individual correlation between the two tests. However, the solving ability did not differ between habitat types in either test. Somewhat unexpectedly, we found marked differences between study years even though we tried to keep conditions identical. These were probably due to small changes to the experimental protocol between years, for example the unavoidable changes of observers and changes in the size and material of test devices. This has an important implication: if small changes in an otherwise identical set-up can have strong effects, meaningful comparisons of cognitive performance between different labs must be extremely hard. In a wider perspective this highlights the replicability problem often present in animal behaviour studies.

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