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Human Initiation of Synurbic Populations of Waterfowl, Raptors, Pigeons and Cage Birds

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Ecology and Conservation of Birds in Urban Environments

Abstract

A common generalization is that wild birds somehow manage to colonize urban areas without human support, which is often true. This paper focuses on a different and probable, though not rare, course of events, when some urban bird populations emerge with immediate human support, by intentional introductions or escape from captivity. This alternate mechanism may be responsible for settling the very first colonizers directly into a strongly urbanized habitat. Such “pioneers” might later be followed by “surplus individuals” moving into cities from the neighbouring natural populations. Eventually, birds of local origin may constitute a prevailing part of the locally developed synurbic population, thus, overshadowing the early genetic contribution of the very first pioneers. Yet the latter individuals might be important as initiators of the colonization and geographical expansion of this process.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In one respect the patterns of main expansion differ between two species. The urban blackbird populations expanded from the NW part of the centre of the continent in all directions, with the prevalence of NE settlement, while those of urban wood pigeons moved mostly to the east, across the European Lowlands, i.e. areas dominated by agricultural land. The latter ones clearly avoided colonizing the cities in sub-mountainous and mountainous regions, presumably because of the surrounding extensive forests. This agrees with an earlier finding that towns amidst farmland tended to hold several times higher wood pigeon densities than the neighbouring ones surrounded by forests (Tomiałojć 2005). Yet, in the past, the blackbird as well, at least between 1820 and 1850, was showing a delay with colonizing the towns amidst a mountainous and forested region (Heyder 1955).

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Acknowledgements

I am deeply obliged for critical comments concerning the first drafts of this paper offered by Drs. Maciej Luniak and Greg Szarycz, as well as the editors.

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  1. Museum of Natural History, University of Wrocław, Sienkiewicza 21, 50-335, Wrocław, Poland

    Ludwik Tomiałojć

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  1. Ludwik Tomiałojć
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Correspondence to Ludwik Tomiałojć .

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  1. G.V. Marqués del Turia, Grupo para el Estudio de las Aves, Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Enrique Murgui

  2. Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

    Marcus Hedblom

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Tomiałojć, L. (2017). Human Initiation of Synurbic Populations of Waterfowl, Raptors, Pigeons and Cage Birds. In: Murgui, E., Hedblom, M. (eds) Ecology and Conservation of Birds in Urban Environments. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43314-1_14

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