Urbanisation-induced changes in the morphology of birds from a tropical city

ABSTRACT

Urbanisation is accompanied by major environmental changes that impact the structure and functioning of communities and ecosystems, bringing new selective regimes for animal species and for eco-evolutionary dynamics. We aimed to evaluate whether urban intensification promotes ecomorphological changes in birds from a large city in Central Brazil. Analyses were performed on a set of 1314 individuals of 35 species, captured along a gradient of urban intensification. We found significant morphological changes associated with urban intensification by evaluating ten ecomorphological traits and body mass of the species assemblage. Beak length showed the most dramatic changes, and was significantly shorter as a function of urban intensification, mainly in individuals of insectivorous and omnivorous species. These results reinforce the notion that environmental changes caused by human activities in dense urban environments promote new selective pressures in resident bird species.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecomorphology
• urban area
• urban animals
• urban sprawl
• urban biodiversity
• urbanisation intensity

Acknowledgments

We thank the Rufford Foundation for the grant support that made this study possible (Project 36888-1), the Brazilian education agency ‘Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior’ (CAPES) for a PhD fellowship to EGS, and CNPq for a researcher fellowship to MÂM. We are grateful to MSD for his valuable comments during our statistical analyses, and WSP and RNS for their valuable contributions to the research development. We also thank all volunteers for their assistance during fieldwork. The captures reported here were licenced (SISBIO/ICMBio: 73880-4; CEMAVE/ICMBio: 4639/1-2; CEUA/UCB: 001/2020).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data are available upon request.

Geolocation information

Brasília, Distrito Federal, Brazil (15°47’ Lat S 47°56′ Long W).

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/01584197.2023.2253836

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully the Rufford Foundation for the grant support that made this study possible [Project 36888-1], the Brazilian education agency ‘Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior’ (CAPES) for a PhD fellowship to EGS, and CNPq for a researcher fellowship to MÂM.