Global meta-analysis reveals urban-associated behavioural differences among wild populations
Abstract
Urbanization causes fundamental changes to natural environments, causing rapid and substantial adaptive phenotypic change in wild populations. While many studies have investigated how urbanization may shape interspecific behavioural variation, for example, via urban environmental filtering, no study has yet quantitatively assessed broad, global patterns of urban-associated intraspecific behavioural variation. Here, we conducted a phylogenetic meta-analysis to assess urban-associated behavioural differences in wild populations of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles and insects. We focused on four commonly measured behaviours (boldness, aggressiveness, activity, exploration) and extracted paired urban-nonurban effect size estimates for behavioural means and variances (k = 279), repeatability (k = 13) and correlations (k = 14) from 81 unique studies. We found evidence that urban populations exhibited heightened average boldness, aggressiveness, exploration and activity compared to nonurban conspecifics, a result that was robust across geographic regions and ecological niches. However, avian species were strongly overrepresented in our meta-analysis (N = 49 studies) compared to other taxa (Mammalia, N = 20; Reptilia, N = 7; Insecta, N = 3; Amphibia, N = 2). Consequently, most behaviours in non-avian taxa were under-sampled, and effect sizes were generally not statistically significant: among non-avian species, only boldness differed significantly between urban and nonurban…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a meta-analysis, done in animal, not in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health. Reported size: 49 participants or records.
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