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On the lookout for danger: House Sparrow alert distance in three cities

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Abstract

The House Sparrow Passer domesticus, closely associated with human presence along urban–agricultural landscapes and widely distributed outside its native range, has shown great morphological and physiological variations, with its plasticity linked to its invasiveness. Yet, there is a dearth of knowledge on the escape behavior of this sparrow along its North American invasion range. We here assessed House Sparrows alert distances in Los Angeles and Mexico City, but also in Barcelona as a control within its native distribution, considering ‘city’, ‘sex/age’ (adult males vs. adult females and juveniles), and ‘flock size’ as alert distance predictors. Through a linear model and a classification and regression tree, we identified that House Sparrow alert distances in Barcelona were significantly larger when compared to both studied North American cities (Los Angeles, Mexico City). Given that alert distances were also significantly larger in Los Angeles when contrasted with those from Mexico City, where it has been recently shown to be hyper-abundant, our results also suggest that its boldness could be related not only to an origin (native/non-native) driver, but also to a density-dependent process.

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Acknowledgments

We are deeply thankful to the anonymous reviewers and Michelle García-Arroyo for their comments and suggestions that enhanced the quality and clarity of our manuscript, as well as Luis E. Sánchez-Ramos for his help with fieldwork in Mexico City, and Roger Guevara for his assistance with statistical procedures. Research funds were granted by UC MEXUS-CONACYT to P.J.Y. and I.M.-F. (CN-13-587), National Geographic Society to P.J.Y. and I.M.-F., the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona and Fundació Zoo de Barcelona to J. Q. (PASSERCAT-1 project), the UC Natural Reserve System to J.G.-H.L. (Mildred E. Mathias Graduate Student Research Grant Program), and the Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society to J.G.-H.L. (Small Grants for Field Study Projects).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Red de Ambiente y Sustentabilidad, Instituto de Ecología, A.C. (INECOL), Carretera antigua a Coatepec 351, El Haya, 91070, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico

    Ian MacGregor-Fors

  2. Department of Vertebrates, Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona, Passeig Picasso s/n, 08003, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

    Javier Quesada

  3. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, 621 Charles E. Young Drive South, Los Angeles, California, 90095, USA

    Jeffrey G.-H. Lee & Pamela J. Yeh

  4. Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, 87501, USA

    Pamela J. Yeh

Authors
  1. Ian MacGregor-Fors
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  2. Javier Quesada
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  3. Jeffrey G.-H. Lee
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  4. Pamela J. Yeh
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Correspondence to Pamela J. Yeh.

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MacGregor-Fors, I., Quesada, J., Lee, J.GH. et al. On the lookout for danger: House Sparrow alert distance in three cities. Urban Ecosyst 22, 955–960 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-019-00874-6

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