Coyotes are widespread across North America and are one of few large predators that are found in cities. If you’ve been following our blog, you may have seen a few pictures of coyotes in urban and residential areas. You have probably also read some great research as well, presented by our guest contributors. Because they are so widespread and charismatic, they do make a great model to look at evolution in urban areas.
Researchers have found that urban coyotes avoid humans (Murray and St. Clair, 2015; Ellington and Gehrt, 2019), however, they also have reduced fear of humans (Schell et al, 2018). This interplay of behaviors towards humans can have cascading consequences that can shape the adaptive response to urbanization.
Natal habitat preference induction (NHPI) describes the process in which an animal develops a preference for habitat features experienced in the natal home range (Davis and Stamps, 2004). If the natal habitat is an urban one, then an organism would likely disperse into another urban habitat because early experiences would shape phenotypes suited for this habitat type.
New Research: NHPI and urban coyotes
Recently, Zepeda et al (2021) tested the predictions that: 1) high habitat quality in natural areas would result in lower departure rates from these areas; 2) due to NHPI, coyotes who did disperse from natural areas would travel farther during transience in pursuit of natural habitat; 3) during settlement, coyotes would select habitats similar to those experienced in their natal home range; and 4) due to lack of early life experience with humans and vehicles, coyotes dispersing from natural areas would be less likely to survive to adulthood and suffer from higher rates of vehicle related mortality.
The collared 85 coyotes that had parents who had previously been collared to track both natal and dispersed habitats.
Coyotes whose natal habitat was more highly urbanized were more likely to disperse and to disperse further distances than those in more non-urban habitats. Interestingly, coyotes in urban natal habitats were not likely to select urban habitats for their new home range, but natal non-urban habitat coyotes avoided urban habitats. These results show that there is some NHPI in coyotes, but that it is strongest in non-urban coyotes, likely because urban habitats are seen as low-quality environments.
Conclusions
Given the avoidance of non-urban coyotes to urban habitats, and the lack of preference to urban habitats from urban borne coyotes, it is unclear how these dispersing coyotes end up in cities. Previous work had found that habitat type is a strong predictor of genetic structure in coyote populations (Sacks et al, 2004; 2008). These two results seem to be at odds with each other and are ripe for further investigations on the evolutionary consequences of urbanization on coyote populations across North America.
Learn more about urban coyotes
Check out more of the great work on urban coyote ecology in Chicago: https://urbancoyoteresearch.com/coyote-info/basics-studying-coyotes
Is is a Coyote? #YoteOrNope by Eastern Coyote Association
New research coming from the Schell Lab (one of our contributors!) blends environmental justice and equity with eco-evo research.
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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