The breeding performance of raptors in urban landscapes: a review and meta-analysis

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dc.contributor.authorKettel, Esther F.
dc.contributor.authorGentle, Louise K.
dc.contributor.authorQuinn, John L.
dc.contributor.authorYarnell, Richard W.
dc.contributor.funderNottingham Trent University
dc.date.accessioned2018-07-18T11:56:20Z
dc.date.available2018-07-18T11:56:20Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.description.abstractGlobal urbanisation is rapidly increasing and can have profound impacts on wild flora and fauna. For many species, the impacts are detrimental and irreversible, whereas others are able to colonise and apparently thrive in these novel, human-made environments. Raptors are particularly susceptible to changes in the environment due to their position at the end of the food chain, yet some species are increasingly associated with towns and cities. To explore the impact of urbanisation on raptors, we reviewed the literature and compared breeding performance in urban and rural populations globally. In general, raptors began breeding earlier and had larger brood sizes in urban compared to rural environments. However, some of these raptors also fledged fewer young in urban habitats, apparently caused largely by a lack of prey and, in some cases, increased human disturbance. As such, urban environments may act as ecological traps for some raptor species. Species differed in their response to urbanisation. In particular, specialist bird predators such as Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus) had a higher breeding performance (clutch size, brood size, number to fledge and nest success) and showed a positive response to urbanisation compared to those that predate on small mammals, such as Eurasian Kestrels (F. tinnunculus), which showed a negative response. This suggests that prey availability is one of the most important determinants of the success of urban-nesting raptors. We demonstrate a need for continued research into the breeding performance of raptors that live in urban environments, and stress the importance of focusing on the reasons for any differences in breeding performance between urban and non-urban environments in order to aid conservation and management efforts for this iconic bird group.en
dc.description.sponsorshipNottingham Trent University (Vice-Chancellor's bursary scholarship)en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationKettel, E. F., Gentle, L. K., Quinn, J. L. and Yarnell, R. W. (2018) 'The breeding performance of raptors in urban landscapes: a review and meta-analysis', Journal of Ornithology, 159(1), pp. 1-18. doi: 10.1007/s10336-017-1497-9en
dc.identifier.doi10.1007/s10336-017-1497-9
dc.identifier.endpage18
dc.identifier.issn0021-8375
dc.identifier.issued1
dc.identifier.journaltitleJournal of Ornithologyen
dc.identifier.startpage1
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/6475
dc.identifier.volume159
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherSpringer International Publishing AGen
dc.relation.urihttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10336-017-1497-9
dc.rights© 2017, the Authors. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.en
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subjectUrban ecologyen
dc.subjectAvian conservationen
dc.subjectUrbanisationen
dc.subjectProductivityen
dc.subjectBird of preyen
dc.titleThe breeding performance of raptors in urban landscapes: a review and meta-analysisen
dc.typeReviewen
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