Revisiting the predation paradox for the Wood Thrush, a declining Neotropical migrant

Despite an increased density of mid‐trophic level predators in urban and suburban areas compared to rural areas, the survival of smaller prey animals, including the eggs and chicks of nesting songbirds, often remains relatively high in these areas. Understanding this seemingly counterintuitive set of patterns (i.e., “the predation paradox”) has important scientific and conservation value, especially for species experiencing population declines. We surveyed the nest predator community and modeled nest survival of a declining Neotropical migrant, the Wood Thrush ( Hylocichla mustelina ), in urban/suburban and rural forests in western Massachusetts. Generalized linear models showed higher counts of potential predators, based on 444 point count surveys, and more potential predators per trap night, based on 100 trail camera surveys, in the urban/suburban forests, compared to the rural forests. We used RMark to model the survival of 253 Wood Thrush nests found over five field seasons. Our results indicated that nest survival of Wood Thrush in our study areas was not significantly different between urban/suburban and rural nests. To further investigate predation patterns, we used video monitoring to observe predators at Wood Thrush nests. This yielded identification of a suite of at least 11 predator species, including sciurids and diurnal raptors. Our results are consistent with previous findings of instances of the predation paradox with other species and in other regions. We discuss some of the hypotheses that have been proposed to account for the predation paradox, including compositional changes in the predator community and the consumption of subsidies by potential nest predators. Our results add to a growing body of work improving our understanding of urban trophic dynamics and offer support for the conservation value of urban/suburban forests.