Urban areas as refuges from predators and flight distance of prey

Abstract

Large animals have longer flight distances when approached by a potential predator than small animals, and predators therefore have longer flight distances than their prey. The ubiquitous presence of humans in urban areas selects for differential invasion by animals with short flight distances, and adaptation to urban environments results in further reductions in flight distance. Because prey are better able to cope with the proximity of humans than predators due to differences in flight distance, urban areas may act as refuges. Predators on average have a flight distance that is 8 times larger than that of their prey. In urban areas, humans were present within a distance of 54 m (the mean flight distance of raptor species) 16% of the time and 4% of the time within a distance of 7 m (the mean flight distance of prey species). In contrast, humans were present 1.2% of the time within a distance of 54 m but only 0.1% of the time within a distance of 7 m in rural habitats. Therefore, prey gained a 10-fold increase in predator refuge in urban compared with rural habitats. The reduction in flight distance between the ancestral rural and the current urban habitats decreased with the difference in flight distance between raptors and that of prey. The difference in flight distance between predators and that of prey increased with increasing preference of prey by sparrowhawks Accipiter nisus relative to their abundance, providing evidence of a selective advantage for prey. These results suggest that birds that are prey of raptors enjoy a selective advantage from association with humans.