Abstract
Ask any urban person what type of animal they see on a daily basis and the response will likely be “birds”. Whether it is their increased mobility due to flight compared to other animals, or a particular ability to adapt to changes in the environment, certain species of birds live in relatively high densities in human-dominated landscapes. Indeed, some species apparently thrive in urban habitats. The connection between birds and human settlements is not a recent one. For example, the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is estimated to have begun its commensal relationship with humans between 400,000 and 10,000 years ago in the Middle East (Anderson 2006). Despite this ancient connection between people and birds the reciprocal nature of our interactions is just beginning to be investigated (e.g. Marzluff and Angell 2005).
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Clucas, B., Marzluff, J.M., Kübler, S., Meffert, P. (2011). New Directions in Urban Avian Ecology: Reciprocal Connections between Birds and Humans in Cities. In: Endlicher, W. (eds) Perspectives in Urban Ecology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17731-6_6
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