Interspecific variation in the relationship between clutch size, laying date and intensity of urbanization in four species of hole-nesting birds

The increase in size of human populations in urban and agricultural areas has resulted in considerable habitat conversion globally. Such anthropogenic areas have specific environmental characteristics, which influence the physiology, life history, and population dynamics of plants and animals. For example, the date of bud burst is advanced in urban compared to nearby natural areas. In some birds, breeding success is determined by synchrony between timing of breeding and peak food abundance. Pertinently, caterpillars are an important food source for the nestlings of many bird species, and their abundance is influenced by environmental factors such as temperature and date of bud burst. Higher temperatures and advanced date of bud burst in urban areas could advance peak caterpillar abundance and thus affect breeding phenology of birds. In order to test whether laying date advance and clutch sizes decrease with the intensity of urbanization, we analyzed the timing of breeding and clutch size in relation to intensity of urbanization as a measure of human impact in 199 nest box plots across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East (i.e., the Western Palearctic) for four species of hole-nesters: blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus), great tits (Parus major), collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis), and pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca). Meanwhile, we estimated the intensity of urbanization as the density of buildings surrounding study plots measured on orthophotographs. For the four study species, the intensity of urbanization was not correlated with laying date. Clutch size in blue and great tits does not seem affected by the intensity of urbanization, while in collared and pied flycatchers it decreased with increasing intensity of urbanization. This is the first large-scale study showing a species-specific major correlation between intensity of urbanization and the ecology of breeding. The underlying mechanisms for the relationships between life history and urbanization remain to be determined. We propose that effects of food abundance or quality, temperature, noise, pollution, or disturbance by humans may on their own or in combination affect laying date and/or clutch size

Misfits and ecological saints: strategies for non-normative living in autistic life writing

The historical construction of autism since the early 20th century has retained a focus on deficient 'interest in people, severe impairments in communication and bizarre responses to the environment' (DSM III). This means that he or she is represented as narcissistic and a-social rather than 'ecocentric', with an interest in the 'mechanical aspects of the environment'. Life writing by autistics including Chris Packham (2018) and Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay (2003, 2008, 2013) demonstrates an awareness that human experiences of the non-human world are intra-active and constantly changing (Alaimo 2010). Ironically, autistic writers who describe affinity with non-human nature are seen as having an innate (hence unreflective and naïve, in Schiller's sense) ecocentrism. This downplays the importance of experimental life writing by autistic authors which displays self-awareness and sensitivity to preconceptions about autism. Whether environmental discourse frames autistics as symbols of toxic practices such as vaccination (see Gibbons 2017) or as 'exemplary neurotypes' (Duan et al 2018) enabled by their autism to deliver us from collective environmental threat, this contributes to the silencing of autistic experience. This is particularly the case when we recognize that autistic lives are manifold and involve difficulties that are highly individual. These difficulties are often key to understanding their author's self-stories. This article reads the autobiographical writings of Packham, Greta Thunberg and Mukhopadhyay in terms of intra-action between humans and their environments. It attends to the ways that autistic self-narratives are framed, and how they suggest the 'emergence of alternative strategies of nonnormative living" that include writing itself (Grossman 2019)