Impact of human presence and activity on urban Eurasian red squirrels' innovative problem-solving.

ABSTRACT: Humans impact wildlife positively and negatively, and increasing evidence shows that humans potentially play a major role in shaping urban wildlife cognition. However, it remains unclear which, and how specific anthropogenic factors, shape animal cognitive performance. Here, across 15 urban areas in Oulu, Finland, we investigated how varied levels of human presence nearby, types of human activity (walking, dog-walking, cycling, and playground activities), and distance to the nearest footpaths influenced 64 squirrels' innovative problem-solving ability-measured as the proportion of solving success at the site level, solving outcome at the individual level as well as individuals' first-success latency. Higher mean human presence nearby and all measured human activities significantly decrease

SUBMITTER: Chow PKY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12527259 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep-Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature