Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución & IEGEBA-CONICET, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Grupo de Investigadores en Biología de la Conservación (GRINBIC) INIBIOMA-CONICET, Bariloche, Argentina.
Sci Rep. 2017 Jun 14;7(1):3527. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-03853-z.
Although habitat transformation is one of the main causes of biodiversity loss, there are many examples of species successfully occupying and even proliferating in highly human-modified habitats such are the cities. Thus, there is an increasing interest in understanding the drivers favoring urban life for some species. Here, we show how the low richness and abundance of predators in urban areas may explain changes in the habitat selection pattern of a grassland specialist species, the burrowing owl Athene cunicularia, toward urban habitats. Predation release improves the demographic parameters of urban individuals, thus favoring an increment in the breeding density of the species in urban areas that accounts for the apparent positive selection of this habitat in detriment of the more natural ones that are avoided. These results suggest that traditional habitat selection analyses do not necessarily describe habitat choice decisions actively taken by individuals but differences in their demographic prospects. Moreover, they also highlight that cites, as predator-free refuges, can become key conservation hotspots for some species dependent on threatened habitats such as the temperate grasslands of South America.
虽然栖息地的转变是生物多样性丧失的主要原因之一，但仍有许多物种成功地在高度人为改造的栖息地（如城市）中生存和繁衍。因此，人们越来越有兴趣了解哪些因素促使某些物种选择城市生活。在这里，我们展示了城市地区捕食者的低丰富度和低丰度如何解释草原专家物种穴鸮（Athene cunicularia）对城市栖息地的栖息地选择模式的变化。捕食者的释放改善了城市个体的人口统计学参数，从而有利于该物种在城市地区繁殖密度的增加，这解释了该物种对这种栖息地的明显正选择，而对那些被回避的更自然的栖息地则不利。这些结果表明，传统的栖息地选择分析并不一定描述个体主动采取的栖息地选择决策，而是描述其在人口统计学前景上的差异。此外，它们还强调，城市作为没有捕食者的避难所，可以成为依赖受威胁栖息地（如南美洲温带草原）的某些物种的关键保护热点。
