title: Differential risk perception of rural and urban Burrowing Owls exposed to humans and dogs.
abstract: Urban areas expose wildlife to an array of novel predators, amongst which, humans and dogs are highly frequent. Thus, wild animals living in urban areas are forced to invest more time and energy in defence behaviours, which depend on how the risk is perceived and assessed. We experimentally tested whether Burrowing owls coming from rural and urban habitats showed differences in behavioural responses when facing humans and domestic dogs. We measured flight initiation distances (FIDs), nest returning, and aggressiveness level when owls faced a human and a human with a dog walking towards them. Our results showed that urban owls recognise a human with a dog as a greater threat than a human alone, thus indicating that fear of domestic animals should be considered as affecting owls' settlement in cities and towns. On the other hand, rural owls perceived human and dogs as similar threats, but showed higher FIDs, less aggressiveness, and lower tendency to return to the nest than urban owls in both treatments. These findings emphasize the importance of modified habitats in modelling the response of urban and rural owls to predators and represent another step in the explanation of how wild animals assess and respond to threats associated with living in urbanized environments.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Vertebrados, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC), CONICET-Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Funes 3350, Mar del Plata B7602AYJ, Argentina. Electronic address: mcavalli@mdp.edu.ar.
authors.forename: Matilde
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cavalli
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Vertebrados, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC), CONICET-Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Funes 3350, Mar del Plata B7602AYJ, Argentina.
authors.forename: Alejandro V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Baladrón
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Vertebrados, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC), CONICET-Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Funes 3350, Mar del Plata B7602AYJ, Argentina.
authors.forename: Juan Pablo
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Isacch
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Vertebrados, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC), CONICET-Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Funes 3350, Mar del Plata B7602AYJ, Argentina.
authors.forename: Laura M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Biondi
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Vertebrados, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC), CONICET-Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Funes 3350, Mar del Plata B7602AYJ, Argentina.
authors.forename: María Susana
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Bó
mesh_terms: D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology; D000818:Animals; D000835:Animals, Wild; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D004285:Dogs; D017753:Ecosystem; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011235:Predatory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D012424:Rural Population; D012938:Social Perception; D020305:Strigiformes / Q000502:physiology*; D014505:Urban Population
keywords: Aggressiveness; Athene cunicularia; Behaviour; Flight initiation distance; Predators