Artificial light at night as a driver of urban colonization by an avian predator
- PDF / 890,750 Bytes
- 11 Pages / 547.087 x 737.008 pts Page_size
- 44 Downloads / 198 Views
(0123456789().,-volV) ( 01234567 89().,-volV)
SHORT COMMUNICATION
Artificial light at night as a driver of urban colonization by an avian predator Airam Rodrı´guez
. Paula Maiten Orozco-Valor . Jose´ Herna´n Sarasola
Received: 3 August 2020 / Accepted: 29 September 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Context Urbanization and artificial light at night (ALAN) are major drivers of local biodiversity losses causing community alterations, disruption of predatorprey interactions, and ultimately, promotion of cascading effects. However, some species can colonize urban environments. Objectives We explore the role of ALAN as a driver of the colonization of urban environments by a
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-01132-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. A. Rodrı´guez (&) Canary Islands’ Ornithology and Natural History Group (GOHNIC), C/La Malecita S/N, 38480 Buenavista del Norte, Canary Islands, Spain e-mail: [email protected]
nocturnal avian predator, the burrowing owl Athene cunicularia. Methods We studied in a suburban locality in La Pampa, Argentina: (1) prey availability with pitfall traps under streetlights and control sites; (2) diet by analyzing pellets; (3) space use by deploying GPS data-loggers to breeding owls; (4) nesting habitat selection by comparing environmental variables at nest and random locations; and (5) productivity by correlating environmental variables with the number of fledglings. Results First, streetlights altered the invertebrate availability, attracting them to illuminated areas. Second, the owl diet was more similar to the P. M. Orozco-Valor J. H. Sarasola Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra y Ambientales de La Pampa, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientı´ficas y Te´cnicas de Argentina (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina
A. Rodrı´guez Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Estacio´n Biolo´gica de Don˜ana, Consejo Superior de Invetigaciones Cientı´ficas (EBD-CSIC), Seville, Spain P. M. Orozco-Valor J. H. Sarasola Centro para el Estudio y Conservacio´n de las Aves Rapaces en Argentina (CECARA), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de La Pampa, Santa Rosa, Argentina
123
Landscape Ecol
invertebrate taxa trapped at pitfall traps under streetlights than that in control traps. Third, owl space use was determined by streetlights. Owls spent more time around light sources, particularly during the nighttime. Fourth, the most important habitat feature influencing the nesting habitat selection was the distance to streetlight. Owls selected areas close to streetlights for nesting. Finally, productivity was not explained by any of our habitat variables. Conclusions We demonstrate that ALAN alters the availability of invertebrates and plays a role in the diet, space use, and occupation of urban burrowing owls. Streetlights increase foraging efficiency for owls due to the clumping of prey attracted to lights. This predator-prey relationship might b
Data Loading...
