Similarly to above, when comparing city-dwelling species from the Western Palearctic with urban avoiders from the same region, the urban birds shared several ecological features (Møller 2009). Urban bird species are characterized by large breeding distributions, high propensity for dispersal, high rates of feeding innovation (novel ways of acquiring food), less fear toward humans (short flight-initiation distance), and a life history characterized by a high annual fecundity and high adult survival rate (Møller 2009). Urban species also have a larger size of the bursa of Fabricius, a specialized organ in birds that is part of the immune system, which suggests that they have the capacity to mount a stronger immune response compared to urban avoiders (Møller 2009). In addition, urban species have higher levels of dietary antioxidants (vitamin E and carotenoids) than the urban avoiders, which may help them to defeat oxidative pollution better, see below (Møller et al. 2010). Other studies have also concluded that urbanization favors omnivorous, granivorous, and cavity-nesting bird species but that it depends on geographical location and climate (Chace and Walsh 2006).
As mentioned above, urban areas have overall lower species richness than nonurban habitats. However, a higher species richness is seen in Palearctic (European) cities as compared to cities in the Nearctic and Australasia (Aronson et al. 2014). This difference could be related to time since urbanization, i.e., the birds have had more time to adapt to the urban environment in the older cities. In the rest of this chapter, I will look into individual- and population-level responses to urbanization, which ultimately provide a platform for selection to act upon and for population divergence to appear, with potential implications for sexually selected traits and speciation.
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