Abstract
Human’s activities dominates many aspects of the Earth’s environment; thus animals are forced to adapt and respond to the resulting changes in habitat structure and functioning due to anthropogenic pressure. Along with the growing human population and the associated amount of waste produced, the amount of different type of physical contamination component in environment is increasing. Incorporation of debris in nests may be a mounting avian response to anthropogenic pollution. In this research, we quantified the constituent pieces and total mass of human-derived materials incorporated in white stork nests. The study was conducted on four locations in central Spain where white storks nest along a urbanization gradient. In total, we examined 49 nests. This study demonstrates that the incorporation of debris by white storks into their nests is related to human activity, measured by the Human Footprint Index (HFI). Moreover, the distance between these nests and landfills predicts the occurrence of debris incorporated into nests. Our study shows that birds nest building behaviour is impacted by human activities and pollution in environment.
Highlights
75% of the Earth’s surface had experienced measureable human pressures, i.e. commonly related to activities of humans which cause a negative effect towards biodiversity (Venter et al 2016; Jones et al 2018)
The number of pieces of debirs incorporated in the white stork nests was positively related to Human Footprint Index (HFI) (Wald χ2 = 12.08, p = 0.001, Table 1) and negatively related to distance to landfill (Wald χ2 = 15.35, p = 0.03, Table 1)
Our study shows that the incorporation of debris by white storks into their nests is related to human activity
Summary
75% of the Earth’s surface had experienced measureable human pressures, i.e. commonly related to activities of humans which cause a negative effect towards biodiversity (Venter et al 2016; Jones et al 2018). Human activities lead to habitat fragmentation, conversion of natural habitats to production land uses, introduction of exotic species and have caused biodiversity losses (Cardinale et al 2012; Hooper et al 2012), the spread of invasive alien species (Lowe et al 2000), and climate change In this context, researchers have developed tools to measure the impact of human activities on Earth surface (Jones et al 2018). 98 different vertebrate species have been observed foraging on landfills worldwide (Plaza and Lambertucci 2017)
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