A recent paper in Scientific Reports, “Of city and village mice” by Dammhahn et al (2020), investigated the behavioral responses of striped field mice (Apodemus agrarius) to urbanization. The ability for an animal to adjust their behavior to a novel environment can contribute to survival in urban habitats, with the possibility of local adaptation to urban habitats.
When animals exhibit consistent behavioural differences between conspecifics, these are considered animal personalities. Dammhan et al hypothesize that higher boldness and spatial exploration are personality traits that are likely to lead to survival in urban habitats. Boldness is considered as increased risk-taking behavior, which has been shown to have fitness consequences, is heritable, and is subject to selection. Spatial exploration is the gathering of information about the environment, which also can have fitness consequences, can be heritable, and may be a target of selection. Because urbanization is rapid and recent, Dammhahn et al also expected that urban mice will have more behavioral flexibility compared to rural mice, which suggests that these traits have not yet become fixed in the urban habitats.
Urban mice were bolder and had more spatial exploration than their rural counterparts (Figure 2 from study). Additionally, the traits were repeatable in rural mice, but less repeatable in urban mice, suggesting that these traits are more flexible in urban mice.
While these traits are likely targets for selection, it is unclear if the increased boldness and exploration are locally adaptive to the urban habitat. Given that these traits were not repeatable in urban mice, there may not yet be strong enough selection for these traits. However, it may be the case that selection favours flexible traits in the urban habitat due to the rapid changes within these habitats. Future work can disentangle these hypotheses of selection in the urban habitat for personality traits.
I am interested in urban ecology and evolution. Urbanization can have drastic impacts on local ecosystems, both negative and positive, and creates a new environment for organisms to experience. To understand the impacts that urbanization plays on organisms, I look through the lense of population genetics and molecular evolution.
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