Ever-increasing urban expansion
has led to worldwide habitat destruction, fragmentation, and degradation,
posing serious threats to wildlife. As the world’s only nocturnal avian apex
predator, owls not only have to adapt to anthropogenic challenges, such as
artificial light and noise (ALAN), but also adapt to hunting different prey
species. Here, we review more than 140 owl diet studies representing 20
different owl species inhabiting rural and urban landscapes in Europe, North
America, South America, North Africa, South Africa, India, Southeast Asia and
Australia. Primarily, we investigate whether there was a relationship between
the degree of urbanisation surrounding nest/roost sites, and the proportion of
synanthropic rodents (the Brown Rat Rattus norvegicus, Black Rat Rattus rattus
and House Mouse Mus musculus) and birds in their diet. The similarity index was
calculated to show the degree of differences in two compared components of the
urban and rural diet of the studied owl species. In total, SI for 20 owl
species was 0.32 in urban rats/house mice vs. rural rats/ house mice, and 0.50
in urban birds vs. rural birds. High rats/house mouse consumption in urban
environments has been documented for most owl species living in cities.
Similarly, suburban and urban owls often eat many more birds than their rural
counterparts, but the difference is less prominent, as shown by a higher
similarity index. Although interactions with powerlines and roads are primarily
problems in rural and natural environments, we have presented them here as
further anthropogenic obstacles for owls to navigate. Studies such as this one
may help form environmental mitigation strategies for future urban expansion.
Author(s)details:-
Heimo Mikkola
University of Eastern Finland, Koskikatu 9B31, 80100 Joensuu, Finland.
Alan Sieradzki
Global Owl Project, USA.
Please see the book
here:- https://doi.org/10.9734/bpi/rpbs/v9/6617
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