Behavioural Plasticity is Associated with Reduced Extinction Risk in Birds

Overview

Journal Nat Ecol Evol

Publisher Springer Nature

Specialty Biology

Date 2020 Apr 7

PMID 32251379

Citations 44

Authors

Simon Ducatez

Daniel Sol

Ferran Sayol

Louis Lefebvre

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Behavioural plasticity is believed to reduce species vulnerability to extinction, yet global evidence supporting this hypothesis is lacking. We address this gap by quantifying the extent to which birds are observed behaving in novel ways to obtain food in the wild; based on a unique dataset of >3,800 novel behaviours, we show that species with a higher propensity to innovate are at a lower risk of global extinction and are more likely to have increasing or stable populations than less innovative birds. These results mainly reflect a higher tolerance of innovative species to habitat destruction, the main threat for birds.

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