Rural Birds Are Less Adaptable Than Urban Birds

New research from the University of Washington (UW) suggests that the adaptability of many urban bird species means they actually thrive in what might be considered a very challenging environment with a much larger range of conditions than are present in their natural habitats.

Frances Bonier, who is a postdoctoral researcher in biology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and who was previously a doctoral student at UW, sent questionnaires to ornithologists, biologists and birdwatchers around the world asking them to list the 10 most common native breeding birds found in their cities.

Data was produced for 217 urban birds and 247 rural birds. Rural birds were defined as those that could not be described as breeding in human-disturbed habitats, e.g., towns and cities. Further its natural breeding distribution must coincide with, or overlap, at least one of the 73 of the world's largest cities involved in the questionnaire study. This overlap implies that the species had at one time occupied the area where the city now is.

In a confirmation of intuitive recognition of urban birds' adaptability, Bonier and co-author Paul Martin, who was formerly a doctoral student at UW and is now an assistant professor of biology at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, learned that urban birds worldwide which are species native to a particular area can endure a far broader range of environments than rural species.

John Wingfield, a UW biology professor involved in the research said that there's never been any research confirming urban birds' adaptability and that the questionnaires provided the information that was lacking. "This now gives us a hypothesis to work from for further research," he added.

Further, the research supports findings suggesting that the most specialized species of birds will be the ones to have the hardest time adapting in a world of changing conditions produced by global climate change.

Wingfield explained that "In the face of global climate change and human disturbances, such as increased urbanization and deforestation, we may be able to identify species that can cope with such changes. Then we may be able to identify the species that cannot cope with these changes, or might even go extinct in the face of increased disruption."

The study will be detailed in a paper that has been published online and will appear later this year in the print edition of the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

"City birds better than rural in coping with human disruption," University of Washington.