Effects of climate variation on bird escape distances modulate community responses to global change

Warm thanks to Jacqui Sykoff for substantially improving the readability of former versions of the manuscript. GM was supported by the Hungarian Ministry for Innovation and Technology within the framework of the Thematic Excellence Programme 2020 (TKP2020-IKA-12, TKP2020-NKA-16).. KT was supported by institutional research funding IUT (34-8) of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research. This paper is a contribution to the project URBILAND (PID2019-107423GA-I00/SRA 1013039/501100011033), funded by the Spanish Research Agency.Climate and land use are rapidly changing environmental conditions. Behavioral responses to such global perturbations can be used to incorporate interspecific interactions into predictive models of population responses to global change. Flight initiation distance (FID) reflects antipredator behaviour defined as the distance at which an individual takes flight when approached by a human, under standardized conditions. This behavioural trait results from a balance between disturbance, predation risk, food availability and physiological needs, and it is related to geographical range and population trends in European birds. Using 32,145 records of flight initiation distances for 229 bird species during 2006-2019 in 24 European localities, we show that FIDs decreased with increasing temperature and precipitation, as expected if foraging success decreased under warm and humid conditions. Trends were further altered by latitude, urbanisation and body mass, as expected if climate effects on FIDs were mediated by food abundance and need, differing according to position in food webs, supporting foraging models. This provides evidence for a role of behavioural responses within food webs on how bird populations and communities are affected by global change.Hungarian Ministry for Innovation and Technology TKP2020-IKA-12 TKP2020-NKA-16Ministry of Education and Research, Estonia 34-8Spanish Research Agency PID2019-107423GA-I00/SRA 1013039/50110001103

Author Correction: The genetic legacy of continental scale admixture in Indian Austroasiatic speakers

This Article contains errors in the Methods section, under subsection ‘Samples collection and genotyping’

Rural-Urban Differences in Escape Behavior of European Birds across a Latitudinal Gradient

Behavioral adjustment is a key factor that facilitates species’ coexistence with humans in a rapidly urbanizing world. Because urban animals often experience reduced predation risk compared to their rural counterparts, and because escape behavior is energetically costly, we expect that urban environments will select for increased tolerance to humans. Many studies have supported this expectation by demonstrating that urban birds have reduced flight initiation distance (FID = predator-prey distance when escape by the prey begins) than rural birds. Here, we advanced this approach and, for the first time, assessed how 32 species of birds, found in 92 paired urban-rural populations, along a 3,900 km latitudinal gradient across Europe, changed their predation risk assessment and escape strategy as a function of living in urban areas. We found that urban birds took longer than rural birds to be alerted to human approaches, and urban birds tolerated closer human approach than rural birds. While both rural and urban populations took longer to become aware of an approaching human as latitude increased, this behavioral change with latitude is more intense in urban birds (for a given unit of latitude, urban birds increased their pre-detection distance more than rural birds). We also found that as mean alert distance was shorter, urban birds escaped more quickly from approaching humans, but there was no such a relationship in rural populations. Although, both rural and urban populations tended to escape more quickly as latitude increased, urban birds delayed their escape more at low latitudes when compared with rural birds. These results suggest that urban birds in Europe live under lower predation risk than their rural counterparts. Furthermore, the patterns found in our study indicate that birds prioritize the reduction of on-going monitoring costs when predation risk is low. We conclude that splitting escape variables into constituent components may provide additional and complementary information on the underlying causes of escape. This new approach is essential for understanding, predicting, and managing wildlife in a rapidly urbanizing world.Peer reviewe

Surface modification of materials to encourage beneficial biofilm formation

Biofilms are communities of sessile microorganisms that grow and produce extrapolymeric substances on an abiotic or biotic surface. Although biofilms are often associated with negative impacts, the role of beneficial biofilms is wide and include applications in bioremediation, wastewater treatment and microbial fuel cells. Microbial adhesion to a surface, which is highly dependent on the physicochemical properties of the cells and surfaces, is an essential step in biofilm formation. Surface modification therefore represents an important way to modulate microbial attachment and ultimately biofilm formation by microorganisms. In this review different surface modification processes such as organosilane surface modification, plasma treatment, and chemical modification of carbon nanotubes, electro-oxidation and covalent-immobilization with neutral red and methylene blue molecules are outlined. The effectiveness of these modifications and their industrial applications are also discussed. There is inadequate literature on surface modification as a process to enhance beneficial biofilm formation. These methods need to be safe, economically viable, scalable and environmental friendly and their potential to fulfil these criteria for many applications has yet to be determined