Abstract
As cities expand to accommodate a growing human population, their impacts to natural ecosystems and the wildlife residing within them increase. Some animals that persist in urban environments demonstrate behaviors distinct from their rural counterparts. These potential behavioral changes are the subject of a growing body of research in the areas of wildlife ecology, biology, and conservation. In spite of increasing urban wildlife research, studies focused specifically on changing behavior in urban mammals is limited. We conducted a systematic literature review to synthesize current research on behavior changes in wild urban mammals. We found 83 papers published between 1987 and March 2020. Omnivores were the leading subject of study, closely followed by carnivores and the specific behaviors most widely studied were home range and vigilance. Among the reviewed studies, there were 166 observations of 44 distinct behaviors with 155 occurrences of behavior change relative to conspecifics in less urban areas. The most commonly studied and observed type of behavior change was alert behavior. Results indicate urban environments drive adaptive responses in behavior including changes in home range and diet preference, shifts in activity budget and vigilance, decreased flight initiation distance, and increased nocturnal activity. Some urban mammal species even demonstrated the ability to modulate behaviors based on environmental cues. Our results highlight the need for long-term wildlife behavior studies across a variety of urban settings to promote successful urban wildlife management and conservation.
Highlights
By 2050, 68% of the world’s 9.7 billion people will be residing in urban areas (United Nations (UN) Department of Economic Social Affairs, 2019a; United Nations (UN) Department of Economic Social Affairs, 2019b)
We reviewed the citations within each retained paper and found an additional 18 papers that met our inclusion criteria for a final total of 83 studies (Supplementary Figure 1)
Our results clearly demonstrate that mammals are responding to the urban environment by changing their behavior
Summary
By 2050, 68% of the world’s 9.7 billion people will be residing in urban areas (United Nations (UN) Department of Economic Social Affairs, 2019a; United Nations (UN) Department of Economic Social Affairs, 2019b). Urban areas present unique and dynamic challenges for resident wildlife (Lowry et al, 2013; Miranda et al, 2013; Alberti, 2015; Birnie-Gauvin et al, 2016). As learning and behavioral adjustments are the primary ways animals cope with changing environments, the highly modified urban landscape provides a veritable proving ground for the ability of wildlife to adapt (Brown, 2012; Greggor et al, 2016). Decreasing natural habitat—alongside increasing anthropogenic resources—can lead to behavioral shifts in urban wildlife populations that present unique management and conservation challenges (Riley et al, 2010; Bateman and Fleming, 2012; Magle et al, 2019).
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