Characteristics of urban environments and novel problem-solving performance in Eurasian red squirrels.

ABSTRACT: Urban environments can be deemed 'harsh' for some wildlife species, but individuals frequently show behavioural flexibility to cope with challenges and demands posed by life in the city. For example, urban animals often show better performance in solving novel problems than rural conspecifics, which helps when using novel resources under human-modified environments. However, which characteristics of urban environments fine-tune novel problem-solving performance, and their relative importance, remain unclear. Here, we examined how four urban environmental characteristics (direct human disturbance, indirect human disturbance, size of green coverage and squirrel population size) may potentially influence novel problem-solving performance of a successful 'urban dweller', the Eurasian red squir

SUBMITTER: Chow PKY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8059950 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature