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The impact of urbanization on body size of Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica gutturalis

Urbanization implies a dramatic impact on ecosystems, which may lead to drastic phenotypic differences between urban and nonurban individuals. For instance, urbanization is associated with increased metabolic costs, which may constrain body size, but urbanization also leads to habitat fragmentation,...

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Autores principales: Zhao, Yanyan, Liu, Yu, Scordato, Elizabeth S. C., Lee, Myung‐Bok, Xing, Xiaoying, Pan, Xinyuan, Liu, Yang, Safran, Rebecca J., Pagani‐Núñez, Emilio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7790637/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33437455
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7088
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author Zhao, Yanyan
Liu, Yu
Scordato, Elizabeth S. C.
Lee, Myung‐Bok
Xing, Xiaoying
Pan, Xinyuan
Liu, Yang
Safran, Rebecca J.
Pagani‐Núñez, Emilio
author_facet Zhao, Yanyan
Liu, Yu
Scordato, Elizabeth S. C.
Lee, Myung‐Bok
Xing, Xiaoying
Pan, Xinyuan
Liu, Yang
Safran, Rebecca J.
Pagani‐Núñez, Emilio
author_sort Zhao, Yanyan
collection PubMed
description Urbanization implies a dramatic impact on ecosystems, which may lead to drastic phenotypic differences between urban and nonurban individuals. For instance, urbanization is associated with increased metabolic costs, which may constrain body size, but urbanization also leads to habitat fragmentation, which may favor increases in body mass when for instance it correlates with dispersal capacity. However, this apparent contradiction has rarely been studied. This is particularly evident in China where the urbanization process is currently occurring at an unprecedented scale. Moreover, no study has addressed this issue across large geographical areas encompassing locations in different climates. In this regard, Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) are a suitable model to study the impact of urbanization on wild animals because they are a widely distributed species tightly associated with humans. Here, we collected body mass and wing length data for 359 breeding individuals of Barn Swallow (H. r. gutturalis) from 128 sites showing different levels of urbanization around the whole China. Using a set of linear mixed‐effects models, we assessed how urbanization and geography influenced body size measured using body mass, wing length, and their regression residuals. Interestingly, we found that the impact of urbanization was sex‐dependent, negatively affecting males’ body mass, its regression residuals, and females’ wing length. We also found that northern and western individuals were larger, regarding both body mass and wing length, than southern and eastern individuals. Females were heavier than males, yet males had slightly longer wings than females. Overall, our results showed that body mass of males was particularly sensitive trait to urbanization, latitude, and longitude, while it only showed a weak response to latitude in females. Conversely, while wing length showed a similar geographical pattern, it was only affected by urbanization in the case of females. Further research is needed to determine whether these phenotypic differences are associated with negative effects of urbanization or potential selective advantages.
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spelling pubmed-77906372021-01-11 The impact of urbanization on body size of Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica gutturalis Zhao, Yanyan Liu, Yu Scordato, Elizabeth S. C. Lee, Myung‐Bok Xing, Xiaoying Pan, Xinyuan Liu, Yang Safran, Rebecca J. Pagani‐Núñez, Emilio Ecol Evol Original Research Urbanization implies a dramatic impact on ecosystems, which may lead to drastic phenotypic differences between urban and nonurban individuals. For instance, urbanization is associated with increased metabolic costs, which may constrain body size, but urbanization also leads to habitat fragmentation, which may favor increases in body mass when for instance it correlates with dispersal capacity. However, this apparent contradiction has rarely been studied. This is particularly evident in China where the urbanization process is currently occurring at an unprecedented scale. Moreover, no study has addressed this issue across large geographical areas encompassing locations in different climates. In this regard, Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) are a suitable model to study the impact of urbanization on wild animals because they are a widely distributed species tightly associated with humans. Here, we collected body mass and wing length data for 359 breeding individuals of Barn Swallow (H. r. gutturalis) from 128 sites showing different levels of urbanization around the whole China. Using a set of linear mixed‐effects models, we assessed how urbanization and geography influenced body size measured using body mass, wing length, and their regression residuals. Interestingly, we found that the impact of urbanization was sex‐dependent, negatively affecting males’ body mass, its regression residuals, and females’ wing length. We also found that northern and western individuals were larger, regarding both body mass and wing length, than southern and eastern individuals. Females were heavier than males, yet males had slightly longer wings than females. Overall, our results showed that body mass of males was particularly sensitive trait to urbanization, latitude, and longitude, while it only showed a weak response to latitude in females. Conversely, while wing length showed a similar geographical pattern, it was only affected by urbanization in the case of females. Further research is needed to determine whether these phenotypic differences are associated with negative effects of urbanization or potential selective advantages. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020-12-19 /pmc/articles/PMC7790637/ /pubmed/33437455 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7088 Text en © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
Zhao, Yanyan
Liu, Yu
Scordato, Elizabeth S. C.
Lee, Myung‐Bok
Xing, Xiaoying
Pan, Xinyuan
Liu, Yang
Safran, Rebecca J.
Pagani‐Núñez, Emilio
The impact of urbanization on body size of Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica gutturalis
title The impact of urbanization on body size of Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica gutturalis
title_full The impact of urbanization on body size of Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica gutturalis
title_fullStr The impact of urbanization on body size of Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica gutturalis
title_full_unstemmed The impact of urbanization on body size of Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica gutturalis
title_short The impact of urbanization on body size of Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica gutturalis
title_sort impact of urbanization on body size of barn swallows hirundo rustica gutturalis
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7790637/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33437455
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7088
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