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May 20, 2026Journal of Animal EcologyOpen Access

Global meta‐analysis reveals urban‐associated behavioural differences among wild populations

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Authors

TBTracy T. BurkhardCentre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueNDNed A. DochtermannDakota State UniversityACAnne CharmantierCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Implication

Meta-analysis assesses urban-associated behavioral differences in wildlife, indicating potential parallel selection effects.

Key Points

  • This research aims to quantitatively assess urban-associated behavioral differences in various wild animal populations.
  • Conducted a phylogenetic meta-analysis focusing on birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and insects.
  • Extracted paired urban–nonurban effect sizes for behaviors: boldness, aggressiveness, activity, and exploration from 81 unique studies (k=279).
  • Analyzed behavioral means and variances, repeatability, and correlations across different species and ecological niches.
  • Urban populations exhibited heightened average boldness, aggressiveness, exploration, and activity compared to nonurban populations.
  • Most studies focused on avian species (49 studies), with non-avian taxa poorly represented; only boldness differed significantly in non-avian species.
  • No strong evidence was found linking urbanization to changes in behavioral variation, repeatability, or correlations.

Cite This Study

Burkhard et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a0d50cdf03e14405aa9ce6fhttps://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70269
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