Reid Rachel, Capilla-Lasheras Pablo, Haddou Yacob, Boonekamp Jelle, Dominoni Davide M
School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine, University of Glasgow, Graham Kerr Building, 82 Hillhead Street, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK.
Proc Biol Sci. 2024 Aug;291(2027):20240617. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2024.0617. Epub 2024 Jul 17.
Stressors associated with urban habitats have been linked to poor wildlife health but whether a general negative relationship between urbanization and animal health can be affirmed is unclear. We conducted a meta-analysis of avian literature to test whether health biomarkers differed on average between urban and non-urban environments, and whether there are systematic differences across species, biomarkers, life stages and species traits. Our dataset included 644 effect sizes derived from 112 articles published between 1989 and 2022, on 51 bird species. First, we showed that there was no clear impact of urbanization on health when we categorized the sampling locations as urban or non-urban. However, we did find a small negative effect of urbanization on health when this dichotomous variable was replaced by a quantitative variable representing the degree of urbanization at each location. Second, we showed that the effect of urbanization on avian health was dependent on the type of health biomarker measured as well as the individual life stage, with young individuals being more negatively affected. Our comprehensive analysis calls for future studies to disentangle specific urban-related drivers of health that might be obscured in categorical urban versus non-urban comparisons.
与城市栖息地相关的压力源已被证明与野生动物健康状况不佳有关，但城市化与动物健康之间是否存在普遍的负相关关系尚不清楚。我们对鸟类文献进行了一项荟萃分析，以测试城市和非城市环境中健康生物标志物的平均差异，以及不同物种、生物标志物、生命阶段和物种特征之间是否存在系统差异。我们的数据集包括从1989年至2022年发表的112篇文章中得出的644个效应量，涉及51种鸟类。首先，当我们将采样地点分为城市或非城市时，我们发现城市化对健康没有明显影响。然而，当这个二分变量被一个代表每个地点城市化程度的定量变量取代时，我们确实发现城市化对健康有轻微的负面影响。其次，我们表明，城市化对鸟类健康的影响取决于所测量的健康生物标志物的类型以及个体生命阶段，幼鸟受到的负面影响更大。我们的综合分析呼吁未来的研究理清在城市与非城市分类比较中可能被掩盖的与城市相关的特定健康驱动因素。
