Are behaviour and stress-related phenotypes in urban birds adaptive?

ABSTRACT: Urbanisation is a world-wide phenomenon converting natural habitats into new artificial ones. Environmental conditions associated with urbanisation represent great challenges for wildlife. Behaviour and stress tolerance are considered of major importance in the adaptation to novel urban habitats and numerous studies already reported behavioural and stress response phenotypes associated with urbanisation, often suggesting they represented adaptations, while rarely demonstrating it. The main goal of this study was to test the adaptive nature of urban shifts in behavioural and stress-related traits, and by adaptive we mean phenotypic change favouring traits in the same direction as selection. Using 7 years of monitoring of urban and forest great tits, we first tested for differences in explor

SUBMITTER: Caizergues AE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9540257 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature