title: Urbanized birds have superior establishment success in novel environments.
abstract: Many animals have adapted to the proximity of humans and thereby gained an advantage in a world increasingly affected by human activity. Numerous organisms have invaded novel areas and thereby increased their range. Here, we hypothesize that an ability to thrive in urban habitats is a key innovation that facilitates successful establishment and invasion. We test this hypothesis by relating the probability of establishment by birds on oceanic islands to the difference in breeding population density between urban and nearby rural habitats as a measure of urbanization in the ancestral range. This measure was the single-most important predictor of establishment success and the only statistically significant one, with additional effects of sexual dichromatism, number of releases and release effort, showing that the ability to cope with human proximity is a central component of successful establishment. Because most invasions occur as a consequence of human-assisted establishment, the ability to cope with human proximity will often be of central importance for successful establishment.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Ecologie, Systématique et Evolution, CNRS UMR 8079, Université Paris-Sud, Bâtiment 362, 91405, Orsay Cedex, France, anders.moller@u-psud.fr.
authors.forename: Anders Pape
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Møller
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Díaz
authors.forename: Einar
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Flensted-Jensen
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Grim
authors.forename: Juan Diego
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Ibáñez-Álamo
authors.forename: Jukka
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jokimäki
authors.forename: Raivo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mänd
authors.forename: Gábor
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Markó
authors.forename: Piotr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tryjanowski
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001717:Birds; D002947:Cities; D017753:Ecosystem; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D058865:Introduced Species / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D062312:Islands; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011156:Population Density; D012424:Rural Population; D014505:Urban Population; D014507:Urbanization