Abstract
Simple SummaryUrbanization causes substantial changes in environmental and habitat conditions. These, as well as more frequent disturbance events accompanying urbanization constitute selective forces acting on various reactions of urban-associated species, including behavior. In this study, rural and urban individuals of a forest specialist ground beetle, Carabus convexus were tested for their exploratory and risk-taking behavior. Beetles responded consistently in the different contexts, and also over time, demonstrating that they had personalities. Carabus convexus is the second ground beetle species in which the existence of personality was demonstrated. By agglomerative cluster analysis, we identified two groups of behavioral traits: the exploratory and the risk-taking dimensions of personality. Urban females were significantly more exploratory than urban males which can be an adaptation to find high quality food needed to mature eggs, as well as to find favorable microsites for oviposition. Moreover, urban females and males showed higher level of risk-taking behavior than rural females. Urban beetles with higher risk-taking behavior may be better able to cope with new conditions created by frequent urbanization-driven disturbance events.The world-wide, rapid urbanization is leading to substantial changes in environmental and habitat conditions. These changes, as well as disturbances accompanying urbanization have considerable effects at various levels of the biological organization on wildlife. Understanding behavioral responses to such changes is essential for identifying which organisms may successfully adapt to the altered conditions. In this study, individuals of a forest specialist ground beetle, Carabus convexus, from rural and urban forest patches were tested for their exploratory and risk-taking behavior. Beetles responded consistently in the different contexts; furthermore, by behaving consistently over time, demonstrated that they had personalities. Agglomerative cluster analysis identified two groups of behavioral traits: the exploratory and the risk-taking dimension of personality. Urban females were significantly more exploratory than urban males which can be an adaptation to find high quality food needed to mature eggs in urban habitats, as well as to select favorable microsites for oviposition. Moreover, urban females and males showed more risk-taking behavior than rural females. Urban beetles with more risk-taking behavior may be better able to cope with frequent urbanization-driven disturbance events.
Highlights
Urbanization is a fast increasing component of global change
Significant urbanization level × sex interaction in square visit, covered distance, and motion time, indicated that the exploratory behavior of females and males depended on the urbanization level of their habitats
Exploratory behavior measured by these parameters on rural females and males did not differ significantly, while urban females were more exploratory than urban males
Summary
Urbanization is a fast increasing component of global change. Fragmented natural habitat patches in urban areas often become isolated, limiting species dispersal and nutrient flows between patches [3,4]. Urbanization profoundly modifies pollutant deposition [5], various climatic parameters [6,7], amounts of nutrients [8], and several biological processes, such as decomposition and mineralization [9], gene flow [4], and community assembly [10]. Ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) have been a favorite group for urbanization studies [24,25,26] for reasons of their diversity, abundance and the availability of an appropriate methodological toolkit [27], and considerable effects at various levels of biological organization are well documented [11]
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