03.02 – Animal Adaptations to City Life

Episode description:

Windows and Toxins, and Cars oh my. Yeesh - City life sure is tough. And not everyone’s up to the task of living like City Mouse. So what makes City Mouse so good at city living? In this episode we lay out the Urban Wildlife Syndrome - some of the common patterns, behaviors, and adaptations wildlife have that make the city life the good life. This is the Single Acorn Podcast.

WORKS CITED

• Syndrome in medicine is a suite of signs and symptoms associated with a disease (link)
• Pappose tarweed, Centromadia parryi (link)
• Moose on the Move (sightings in Burlington – link)
• The Fisher by Roger Powell (link)
• Diet of Fishers (Martes pennanti) at the Southernmost Extent of Their Range (source)
• Video of fisher in Centennial Woods (source)
• Evolution on a local scale: developmental, functional, and genetic bases of divergence in bill form and associated changes in song structure between adjacent habitats (source)
• Some Sad Owl News, The DC Snowy Owl Has Died (link)
• Crow’s Path Patreon (support)
• Etymology of “plug” (link)
• What makes a species synurbic? (source)
• The Private Life of the Rabbit by Ronald Lockley (book)
• Kidnapping and reciprocity in cooperatively breeding white-winged choughs (source)
• Winter Nest Microclimate of Monk Parakeets (source)
• Pigeon vs monk parakeet poop (article)
• Monk parakeets as an urban tourist attraction (article)
• Noises in a monk parakeet colony (video)
• Wild quolls take bait of cane-toad sausages, offering hope for species (article)
• Composite List of C₄ Weeds (source)
• There are C4 trees, but they are indeed very rare! 
  • Why is C4 photosynthesis so rare in trees? (source)
• What Do Baseball Players and Shrikes Have In Common? (source)
• One strategy does not fit all: determinants of urban adaptation in mammals (source)
• Gray squirrel density, habitat suitability, and behavior in urban parks (source)
• City sicker? A meta‐analysis of wildlife health and urbanization – a study that looked at stress levels in urban wildlife (source)