What makes specialized food-caching mountain chickadees successful city slickers?

ABSTRACT: Anthropogenic environments are a dominant feature of the modern world; therefore, understanding which traits allow animals to succeed in these urban environments is especially important. Overall, generalist species are thought to be most successful in urban environments, with better general cognition and less neophobia as suggested critical traits. It is less clear, however, which traits would be favoured in urban environments in highly specialized species. Here, we compared highly specialized food-caching mountain chickadees living in an urban environment (Reno, NV, USA) with those living in their natural environment to investigate what makes this species successful in the city. Using a 'common garden' paradigm, we found that urban mountain chickadees tended to explore a novel environment

SUBMITTER: Kozlovsky DY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5454252 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature