Abstract
Environmental change through habitat fragmentation and urbanization drives biodiversity loss in the Neotropics at an alarming rate. Some individuals and species confined to habitat fragments may develop phenotypic adjustments that allow populations to persist, even in landscapes made harsh by human activities. Behavioral and morphological adjustments may enhance a population’s ability to cope with anthropogenic hazards. We examined potential differences in the behavioral and morphological phenotype of populations of the neotropical Wedge-billed Woodcreeper (Glyphorynchus spirurus)—an understory forest specialist insectivorous bird—between populations from urban fragmented forests and continuous preserved forests. We evaluated exploratory behavior and morphological traits using generalized linear models and linear discriminant analysis to quantify phenotypical differences among populations. We used failure time analysis to compare latency to explore and move during exploration in a Novel Environment Test (NET). Our analyses detected differences in certain movement behaviors (latencies to move during NET), indicating that individuals from fragmented forests are slow explorers in relation to individuals from the continuous forest. We also found shorter tarsi and tails in the fragmented forest population which were attributed to an overall reduction in body size in these populations. Our results suggest that environmental change driven by fragmentation in an urban landscape is causing population differentiation, but we cannot ascribe observed variations to evolutionary processes only, as the differences observed may be explained by other processes too. However, we suggest that phenotypic differences may be aiding this small understory forest specialist to persist in an urban fragmented landscape.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available in a Google Drive folder that can be accessed upon request to: stspiteri@hotmail.com.
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Acknowledgements
We thank all volunteers for assistance in fieldwork: Anaís Prestes, Alex Latorre, Beatriz Barreto dos Santos Modesto, Flávia Líbia, Francielen Paiva, Gisiane Rodrigues, Iamile Brandão de Oliveira, Jessica Andrade de Oliveira, José Raulino, Lucas Carvalho de Jesus, Juliana de Oliveira Pinheiro, Marcos Pimentel Abbade, Max Queiroz, Natasha Helena, Natasha Raíssa, Pedro Paulo, Phamela Barbosa, Priscilla Diniz and Riomar Queiroz. We also thank INFRAERO and UFAM for allowing us access to the restricted forest areas of “Eduardo Gomes” International airport and the FAEXP, respectively, for sampling and the “Museu na Floresta” for providing logistical support during one of our field expeditions. We thank Thomas Merckx, two anonymous reviewers, and the Associate Editor for their valuable comments and suggestions that improved our manuscript.
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This study was financially supported by FAPEAM (Universal Amazonas—002/2018) granted to CC. Field work and avian captures were performed under the license granted to SSA by the Brazilian Government (ICMBio/SISBio 66,065-1). This study was also approved by the Ethic Committee for the use of Animals in Experiments at UFAM granted to SSA (n° 072/2019).
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Conceptualization: CC, KS SSA. Methodology: CC, MA, SSA. Field testing: SSA. Formal analysis and investigation: SSA, KS, CC, MA. Writing—original draft preparation: SSA. Writing—review and editing: CC, MA, KS.
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Avilla, S.S., Sieving, K.E., Anciães, M. et al. Phenotypic variation in a neotropical understory bird driven by environmental change in an urbanizing Amazonian landscape. Oecologia 196, 763–779 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04976-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04976-x