Figure 3 - uploaded by Lynn B Martin
Content may be subject to copyright.
Fear of novel objects is not significantly different between established and invading house sparrows. No difference in (A) approach or (B) feed latency between populations when novel objects placed beside food dishes. Bars represent means 6 1SE; NS indicates no significant difference by ANOVA.
Source publication
One of the central questions in invasion biology involves why some introductions succeed and others fail. Although several correlates of invasion success have been identified, patterns alone cannot identify the mechanisms underlying the invasion process. Here, we test the hypothesis that one predictor of invasion success, behavioral flexibility, is...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... latency to approach (F 7,64 ¼ 1.95, p ¼ 0.08), nor latency to eat (F 7,64 ¼ 1.26 p ¼ .288), nor any interaction terms varied significantly between sparrow populations (n ¼ 32 for each population; Figure 3). In both populations, however, approach latency was affected by object type (F 3,64 ¼ 3.88, p ¼ .013). Sparrows were more willing to approach seed- filled dishes when a ball or lizard or cup was nearby ( Figure 4). Because this indicated that only the cup and ribbon were aversive, we compared neophobia between populations using only these two objects. Latency to approach (t 30 ¼ 1.313, p ¼ .20) and feed (t 30 ¼ 0.176, p ¼ .861) when objects were nearby were still not significantly different between ...
Similar publications
Group living can confer advantages to individuals, but it can also impose severe costs through resource competition. Kleptoparasitism is one example in which some individuals (joiners) can exploit the food discovered by other animals (finders). This type of social foraging has been modelled either as an information-sharing model or as a producer–sc...
Citations
... Exploration can be accompanied by neophilia, the preference for or attraction to novelty, which is suggested to be a trait independent from neophobia, the avoidance of unfamiliar stimuli (6). Greater neophilia, especially toward potential food items, can be a good indicator of success in a novel habitat (7,8). However, seeking and exploiting novel resources comes with risks. ...
... Further, based on a hypothesized early sensitive period, we predicted that hens having multiple environmental choices during the first 4 weeks of rearing would show responses to novel opportunities indicative of having greater exploratory motivation, greater neophilia, lower neophobia, and greater behavioral flexibility than hens only exposed to multiple environmental choices later during rearing. Given that responses to novel food items, novel objects, and novel environments are not always correlated (6,7,35), we evaluated laying hen responses to different sources of novelty and to opportunities that they are likely to encounter under commercial conditions at relevant ages. ...
... We compared two environments (Single-choice and Multi-choice) during two periods: Early (day 1-week 4) and Late (week [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] rearing. At all times, half of the rearing pens were Single-choice and the other half were Multi-choice. ...
Introduction: The potential of aviary housing for improving laying hen (Gallus gallus domesticus) welfare will be constrained if rearing conditions limit the hens' behavioral ability to take opportunities. Incorporating theories on developmental plasticity and animal agency, this study aimed to determine: (1) whether a choice of litter and perch types during rearing would promote long-lasting changes in use of novel locations and resources, and (2) the influence of timing of choice provision. Methods: Laying hen chicks were assigned to either a "Single-choice" (one litter and perch type) or "Multi-choice" environment (four litter and perch types) during "Early" (day 1-week 4) and "Late" rearing (week 5-15). The environments were switched in half of the 16 pens in week 5, resulting in a 2 × 2 factorial design with four choice environment by period combinations. The allocation of perch and litter space was the same across all treatment combinations. In week 16, all groups were moved to standard aviary laying pens (Laying period, week 16-27). Results: When first moved to the laying pens, hens with Multi-choice in either or both rearing periods were quicker to spread out in their pen than hens with Single-choice throughout rearing. Multi-choice in Early rearing also reduced the latency to use novel elevated structures (perches and nests) in the laying pens. Multi-choice during Late rearing increased success in finding and consuming hidden mealworms (tested in weeks 9-17) and increased the proportion of eggs laid on elevated nesting trays. Numerically, hens switched from Multi-choice to Single-choice in week 5 used the outdoor range less than hens switched from Single-choice to Multi-choice. Discussion: These results support the hypothesis that offering multiple resource choices during rearing improves hens' ability to make the most of new opportunities by being more proactive in exploring and exploiting newly available resources. In different opportunity challenges, hens showed positive outcomes in response to choice during Early, Late or both stages of rearing, suggesting that best results can be obtained by offering environmental choice throughout rearing.
... Las familias más numerosas observadas fueron los Tyrannidae y Thraupidae. Además, se logró registrar cuatro especies de interés para los observadores de aves, Passer domesticus (la cual es una especie introducida y ampliamente distribuida, pero con pocas observaciones en la Amazonía por ser una especie que habita en zonas urbanas (Martin & Fitzgerald, 2005), Thlypopsis sordida, Galbalcyrhynchus leucotis, y Chlorestes cyanus de alta importancia para el turismo de observación de aves y fotografía de naturaleza. ...
La Amazonía peruana cuenta con una vasta diversidad de aves. Sólo en Loreto existen aproximadamente 1 040 especies, algunas de ellas en categoría de amenaza. La presente investigación se realizó entre mayo y junio de 2023 con el objetivo de observar, registrar e identificar la diversidad de especies de aves presentes en el campus de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Alto Amazonas y sus alrededores. Se emplearon métodos de observación directa, auditiva y playback haciendo uso de equipos como binoculares, cámara digital y una bocina para la observación de las aves. Se identificaron un total de 58 especies agrupadas en 14 órdenes y 28 familias. El orden Passeriformes fue el más abundante, seguido de los Psittaciformes. Se identificó la presencia de un dormidero de psitácidos cerca del campus y de cuatro especies de interés para el turismo de observación de aves y fotografía de naturaleza, Passer domesticus (especie introducida), Thlypopsis sordida, Galbalcyrhynchus leucotis y Chlorestes cyanus. Se concluye que es necesario realizar un estudio exhaustivo para identificar las especies que habitan en la ciudad de Yurimaguas y sus alrededores.
... House sparrows show wide and repeatable individual variation in novel object and novel food responses, with some individuals displaying extremely high neophobia and others appearing indifferent towards novelty (Ensminger and Westneat, 2012;Kelly et al., 2020;Kimball et al., 2022;Liebl and Martin, 2014;Martin and Fitzgerald, 2005). This wide individual variation makes house sparrows ideal to examine possible intra-individual correlations among different types of neophobia tests. ...
Novel object, food, and environment trials have been widely used to understand how individual variation in neophobia (an aversion to novelty) relates to variation in endocrine, physiological, and ecological traits. However, what is often missing from these studies is an evaluation of whether an animal's response to one type of neophobia test is reflective of its response to other neophobia tests. In this study we investigated whether spatial neophobia was significantly correlated with responses to a novel object paradigm. In spatial neophobia trials, wild-caught house sparrows (n = 23) were allowed access to a novel environment (an adjacent cage with familiar objects placed in new locations). Time to first enter and total time spent in the novel environment were assessed. In novel object trials, birds were exposed to a new novel object in, on, or near their food dish and time to approach and feed from the dish was measured. Results indicate that neither time spent in a novel environment nor time to first enter a novel environment were correlated with an individual's average response to novel object trials. Therefore, these two tests may be assessing two discrete behaviors that involve separate decision-making processes and functional circuits in the brain.
... The ability of an animal to modify its behavior may be important for determining its capacity to become invasive (Sol and Lefebvre 2000;Sakai et al. 2001;Sol et al. 2002;Pavlov et al. 2006). Behavioral flexibility and plasticity may benefit invasive species through stronger avoidance of predators (Levri et al. 2019), feeding on new/novel prey items (Martin and Fitzgerald 2005;Green et al. 2011), and increased migration to colonise and occupy new habitats and niches (Phillips et al. 2006). Numerous studies have focussed on the ecological impacts of invasions such as direct predator-prey and parasite-host interactions (Pavlov et al. 2006;Sol and Weis 2019), but the activities of animals can also directly and indirectly alter the physical environment via ecosystem engineering (Jones et al. 1994;Wright and Jones 2006;Hastings et al. 2007;Emery-Butcher et al. 2020) and zoogeomorphology (Viles 1988;Butler 1995;Philips 2009;Statzner 2012;Mason and Sanders 2021). ...
The behavior of animals can change when they become invasive. Whilst many species demonstrate exaggerations of existing behaviors, signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) display a novel burrowing activity in some invaded rivers. Understanding if burrowing is learned or innate is important for modelling the geomorphological effects of invasion into new territories. Mesocosm experiments were undertaken with signal crayfish to investigate the effects of population density, shelter availability, and population provenance on their likelihood to burrow. Crayfish were collected within their native range in the USA; a recently invaded site in the USA; and two well-established invasive populations in the UK—one where burrowing in the field was present, and one population where burrowing in the field was absent. Crayfish from all populations constructed burrows in laboratory experiments. Population density and shelter availability were significant drivers of burrowing. There was no difference in burrowing between the invasive UK populations and the US native population, suggesting that burrowing is an innate, rather than learned, behavior. Therefore, crayfish have the capacity to affect geomorphic processes in any river that they invade, regardless of the source population. However, crayfish from the recently invaded USA river excavated more sediment than crayfish from their native range. These results demonstrate high plasticity of signal crayfish activities and show that innate behavioral strategies not seen in the native range can be activated at invaded sites.
... We focused on the House Sparrow since it has been shown to be an ideal model species to study FIDs 18,19,33,34 . Previous studies have reported that individuals display a bolder behavior the larger the urban area 20,[35][36][37] , and House Sparrow FIDs have also been found to be shorter in urban environments when compared with those of individuals from non-urban areas [15][16][17] . We analyzed FID variability in the same region to avoid collateral effects on FID related to latitudinal, climatic or cultural effects 38 . ...
A recurrent behavioral trait model to study adaptation to urban environments is the flight initiation distance (FID), measured as the distance at which animals flee from an approaching threat. It has previously been shown that urban birds display shorter FID than their non-urban (rural) counterparts. However, discerning whether this is the result of habituation to human presence and frequentation, or of ecological factors related to the size of the city (considered as “systemic habituation”), has not yet been addressed. In this study, we analyzed House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) FIDs in a network of 26 small towns and villages within the same region in northeastern Spain. Our aim was to relate FID to human population density and settlement size. If the habituation to human presence hypothesis was supported, we should expect FIDs to decrease with the density of the human population across the human settlements, since this type of habituation is related to the rate of human exposure and this is proportional to human density. However, if the systemic habituation hypothesis was supported, FIDs should instead relate to the size of the human settlements, as the abundance of predators, similarly to other ecological variables, is often proportional to the size of towns. Results showed House Sparrows to be bolder in larger human settlements, but not necessarily the ones with a higher density of human population. This supports the idea that the fact that urban birds display shorter FIDs than their rural counterparts is the result of systemic ecological factors rather than the results of a simple habituation to humans.
... Explorative behavior can also be an advantage, both to escape captivity and in early stages of invasion. For example, in newly established populations of invading house sparrows, neophobia is lower than in old resident populations, which may explain the species' success in urban areas (Martin & Fitzgerald, 2005). ...
With the increasing urbanization of the last decades, more and more bird species occur in urban habitats. Birds which thrive in urban habitats often have a higher tolerance toward human disturbance and show behaviors which differ from their rural counterparts. There is increasing evidence that many behaviors have a genetic basis. One candidate gene is the dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4), which has been associated with fear and thus, flight initiation distance (FID). In this study, we analyzed a segment of DRD4 in greylag geese Anser anser, describing the variability of this gene across several geographically distant populations, and comparing its variability between an urban and a rural site in south–west Germany. We additionally measured FIDs of urban and rural geese to test for a possible correlation with DRD4 genotypes. We found a high variation within DRD4, with 10 variable sites leading to 11 alleles and 35 genotypes. Two genotypes occurred in 60% of all geese and were thus defined as common genotypes versus 33 rare genotypes. Population differentiation was very low between the urban and rural sites in Germany but common genotypes occurred more often in the urban area and rare genotypes more often in the rural area. FID was significantly higher at the rural site, but no significant correlation between FID and DRD4 genotypes could be detected. Nevertheless, our results suggest that local site selection may be related to DRD4 genotypes. There is increasing evidence that the dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) influences fear and thus, flight initiation distance (FID). We compared greylag geese living in an urban and a rural site and found that common DRD4 genotypes occurred more often in urban sites while rare genotypes occurred more often in the rural site. FID was significantly higher at the rural site, but no significant correlation between FID and DRD4 genotypes could be detected.
... House sparrows are also an invasive species that now have a global distribution. Understanding the sparrow's behavior is an important component for understanding this species' success as an invader [27]. We predicted that birds exhibiting higher exploratory behavior would have higher alpha diversity, a measure of the richness and evenness of the microbiome. ...
Background
The gut microbiome influences its host in a myriad of ways, from immune system development to nutrient utilization. However, our understanding of the relationship between the gut microbiome and behavior, especially in wild species, is still poor. One behavior that potentially interacts with the gut microbiome is exploratory behavior, which animals use to acquire new information from the environment. We hypothesized that diversity of the gut microbiome will be correlated with exploratory behavior in a wild-caught bird species. To test this hypothesis, we captured wild house sparrows (Passer domesticus) and collected fecal samples to measure the diversity of their gut microbiomes. We then introduced individuals to a novel environment and measured their exploratory behavior.
Results
We found that birds with higher alpha diversity of the gut microbiome exhibited higher exploratory behavior. These results suggest that high exploratory birds encounter more types of environmental microbes that contribute to their diverse gut microbiome compared with less exploratory birds. Alternatively, increased gut microbiome diversity may contribute to increased exploratory behavior. We also found differences in beta diversity when comparing high and low exploring birds, indicating differences in microbiome community structure. When comparing predicted functional pathways of the birds’ microbiomes, we found that the microbiomes of high explorers contained more pathways involved in biofilm formation and xenobiotic degradation than those of low explorers.
Conclusions
Overall, we found that the alpha and beta diversity of the gut microbiome is correlated with exploratory behavior of house sparrows. The predicted functions of the gut microbiome from high explorers differs from that of low explorers. Our study highlights the importance of considering the gut microbiome when investigating animal behavior.
... Individuals residing in rural locations are known to be more wary in approaching novelty, or may lack interest because they have not formed an association between anthropogenic novelty and food rewards. As a result, they may miss out on opportunities (Martin and Fitzgerald 2005, Tryjanowski et al. 2016, Galbraith et al. 2017, Jarjour et al. 2020. ...
Living with increasing urbanisation and human populations requires resourcefulness and flexibility in wild animals' behaviour. Animals have to adapt to anthropogenic novelty in habitat structure and resources that may not resemble, or be as beneficial as, natural resources. Herring gulls Larus argentatus increasingly reside in towns and cities to breed and forage, yet how gulls are adjusting their behaviour to life in urban areas is not yet fully understood. This study investigated wild herring gulls' responses to novel and common anthropogenic objects in urban and rural locations. We also examined whether gulls' age influenced their object response behaviour. We found that, out of the 126 individual gulls presented with objects, 34% approached them. This suggests that the majority of targeted gulls were wary or lacked interest in the experimental set‐up. Of the 43 gulls that approached the objects, we found that those tested in urban locations approached more slowly than their rural counterparts. Overall, gulls showed no preference for either novel or common anthropogenic objects, and age did not influence likelihood of approach, approach speed or object choice. Individuals paid most attention to the object they approached first, potentially indicative of individual preferences. Our findings indicated that most herring gulls are not as attracted to anthropogenic objects as anecdotal reports have suggested. Covering up obvious food rewards may thus help mitigate human–gull conflict over anthropogenic food sources.
... Similar common garden experiments showed greater expression of exploratory behaviors in populations of cane toads at the edge of range expansion relative to populations within the range (Gruber et al., 2017). Exploratory and foraging behaviors are linked in range-expanding populations, as shown by greater drive to eat novel foods in invading edge populations of birds (Liebl and Martin, 2014;Martin and Fitzgerald, 2005). Studies of island vs. mainland populations show greater displays of exploratory behaviors in recently colonized populations (Brodin et al., 2013;Stratton et al., 2021). ...
We assessed the macrogeographic and neuroendocrine correlates of behavioral variation exhibited by juveniles, an important life stage for dispersal, across the expansive range of the wood frog. By rearing animals from eggs in a common garden then using a novel environment test, we uniquely demonstrated differential expression of juvenile behaviors among 16 populations spanning 8° latitude. On the individual level, cluster analysis indicated three major behavior profiles and principal component analysis resolved four unique axes of behavior, including escape, foraging, food intake, feeding efficiency. We found that increased escape behavior was associated with lower adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)-induced circulating corticosterone (CORT) levels, however, foraging and food intake behaviors were not associated with either resting or ACTH-induced CORT. At the population level, the expression of foraging behaviors increased with latitude while food intake behaviors declined with latitude, which raised several hypotheses of eco-evolutionary processes likely driving this variation. Given that these behaviors covary along the same ecological gradient as locally adapted developmental traits, genomic studies in this species could provide deep insights into how HPA/I activity is associated with the eco-evolutionary processes that structure intraspecific variation in morphology and behavior.
... Exploration, in which an animal acts to initiate a change in its environment [8], or responding to a stimulus [9], may be related to ecological factors [10] or cognition factors [11]. Exploring and utilizing novel food resources are associated with successful expansion and are two of the most important abilities needed to survive in new circumstances after expansion [7,[12][13][14]. It has been found that trying new foods may explain how House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) have so successfully invaded new areas [12]. ...
... Exploring and utilizing novel food resources are associated with successful expansion and are two of the most important abilities needed to survive in new circumstances after expansion [7,[12][13][14]. It has been found that trying new foods may explain how House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) have so successfully invaded new areas [12]. In some other cases, expansive birds have higher foraging efficiency [13], but the underlying mechanisms to explain increases in foraging efficiency remain unclear. ...
... In experiments 1 and 2, several behavioral variables were measured from video recordings to quantify birds' propensity to explore and accept novel food resources under solitary and group contexts [12]: time to start eating a novel food (t1), number of times eating novel food (N), and percentage of time spent consuming novel food during 30 min (DP). ...
Animals can expand distributions in response to climatic and environmental changes, but the potential expansive ability of a source population is rarely evaluated using designed experiments. Group foraging can increase survival in new environments, but it also increases intraspecific competition. The trade-off between benefit and conflict needs to be determined. The expanding Light-vented Bulbul Pycnonotus sinensis was used as a model to test mechanisms promoting successful expansion. Social foraging and its advantages were evaluated using lab-designed feeding trials. Consuming novel foods was compared between bulbuls and a sympatric, nonexpansive relative species, the finchbill Spizixos semitorques, from native areas at both solitary and social levels. Bulbuls increased their eating times when transferred from solitary to group, whereas social context did not affect finchbills. Bulbuls were significantly more likely to eat with their companions than finchbills when in a group. Thus, exploring food resources in a bulbul source population was facilitated by social context, indicating that social foraging is an important means by which birds successfully expand and respond to environmental changes. This research increases understanding of successful expansion mechanisms and will consequently help predict invasive potentials of alien species.
