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Heritability of fear of humans in urban and rural populations of a bird species

Flight initiation distance (FID), a measure of an animal’s tolerance to human disturbance and a descriptor of its fear of humans, is increasingly employed for conservation purposes and to predict the response of species to urbanization. However, most work devoted to understanding variability in FID...

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Autores principales: Carrete, Martina, Martínez-Padilla, Jesús, Rodríguez-Martínez, Sol, Rebolo-Ifrán, Natalia, Palma, Antonio, Tella, José L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4976307/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27499420
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep31060
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author Carrete, Martina
Martínez-Padilla, Jesús
Rodríguez-Martínez, Sol
Rebolo-Ifrán, Natalia
Palma, Antonio
Tella, José L.
author_facet Carrete, Martina
Martínez-Padilla, Jesús
Rodríguez-Martínez, Sol
Rebolo-Ifrán, Natalia
Palma, Antonio
Tella, José L.
author_sort Carrete, Martina
collection PubMed
description Flight initiation distance (FID), a measure of an animal’s tolerance to human disturbance and a descriptor of its fear of humans, is increasingly employed for conservation purposes and to predict the response of species to urbanization. However, most work devoted to understanding variability in FID has been conducted at the population level and little is still known about inter-individual variability in this behaviour. We estimated the heritability of FID, a factor fundamental to understanding the strength and evolutionary consequences of selection of particular phenotypes associated with human disturbances. We used a population of burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia) monitored long-term and for which FID was previously shown to be highly consistent across an individual’s lifespan. Heritability estimates varied between 0.37 and 0.80, depending on the habitat considered (urban-rural) and method used (parent-offspring regressions or animal models). These values are unusually high compared with those previously reported for other behavioural traits. Although more research is needed to fully understand the underlying causes of this resemblance between relatives, selection pressures acting on this behaviour should be seriously considered as an important evolutionary force in animal populations increasingly exposed to human disturbance worldwide.
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spelling pubmed-49763072016-08-22 Heritability of fear of humans in urban and rural populations of a bird species Carrete, Martina Martínez-Padilla, Jesús Rodríguez-Martínez, Sol Rebolo-Ifrán, Natalia Palma, Antonio Tella, José L. Sci Rep Article Flight initiation distance (FID), a measure of an animal’s tolerance to human disturbance and a descriptor of its fear of humans, is increasingly employed for conservation purposes and to predict the response of species to urbanization. However, most work devoted to understanding variability in FID has been conducted at the population level and little is still known about inter-individual variability in this behaviour. We estimated the heritability of FID, a factor fundamental to understanding the strength and evolutionary consequences of selection of particular phenotypes associated with human disturbances. We used a population of burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia) monitored long-term and for which FID was previously shown to be highly consistent across an individual’s lifespan. Heritability estimates varied between 0.37 and 0.80, depending on the habitat considered (urban-rural) and method used (parent-offspring regressions or animal models). These values are unusually high compared with those previously reported for other behavioural traits. Although more research is needed to fully understand the underlying causes of this resemblance between relatives, selection pressures acting on this behaviour should be seriously considered as an important evolutionary force in animal populations increasingly exposed to human disturbance worldwide. Nature Publishing Group 2016-08-08 /pmc/articles/PMC4976307/ /pubmed/27499420 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep31060 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Carrete, Martina
Martínez-Padilla, Jesús
Rodríguez-Martínez, Sol
Rebolo-Ifrán, Natalia
Palma, Antonio
Tella, José L.
Heritability of fear of humans in urban and rural populations of a bird species
title Heritability of fear of humans in urban and rural populations of a bird species
title_full Heritability of fear of humans in urban and rural populations of a bird species
title_fullStr Heritability of fear of humans in urban and rural populations of a bird species
title_full_unstemmed Heritability of fear of humans in urban and rural populations of a bird species
title_short Heritability of fear of humans in urban and rural populations of a bird species
title_sort heritability of fear of humans in urban and rural populations of a bird species
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4976307/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27499420
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep31060
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