There are many species considered to be pests, many typically being insects species. This study mainly focuses on corvids being a pest species due to its damage on crops. Due to the damage they cause to crops, culling is implemented to regulate their population numbers. But it many studies, culling has seem to have little to no effect to reduce numbers. Other methods have also shown to be inefficient to regulate their numbers.

There has been a increase of corvids in urban populations, which can be attributed to the increase of food and nesting site availability. The establishment of urban parks have seem to be starting point of population increasing. Another reasoning can be pinpointed towards corvids having easy access to food from waste bins or digging up for invertebrates. Whenever corvids dig up invertebrates, it causes the grass to be uprooted, leading to damage to lawn beds.

This study goes over the possibility of restricting mowing to reduced uprooting by urban corvids. The study was conducted in Jardin des Plantes, Paris, France, which contains a large urban park. The park contains a botanical garden, which includes an alpine garden and a ecological garden. The garden covers .4 ha and hosts nocturnal crow roost that an receive up to 200 individuals. The garden, Carre Lamarck portion, contains 16 lawn beds/4 bushes/12 full grass lawns.

The study focused on 12 lawn beds, which were divided up into 2 groups. One being mowed regularly, and the other being unmoved from September until February. The experiment was repeated but treatment was reversed between the two groups the following year. In each lawn, researchers created a 50 by 50 cm cells. In each lawn 4 cells measured grass height and invertebrate larva was identified. In all cells number of uprooted patches and the total damaged area was recorded.

From the results, it showed that all lawns had damage but lawns that were mown had a much higher proportion of area damaged. The probability of a lawn being damaged was higher in mown lawns. The damaged area per cell was also much higher in mown lawns. The study also showed that the unmown beds had significantly lower area uprooted. The results of the study showed that taller grass causes corvids to have a harder time to located larvae and taller grass is difficult for corvids to uproot.

I find that results of the study to be evidence that restricted mowing has a major effect on corvids in urban areas. The methods seems to be a much better one compared to others, such as culling. But in my opinion I believe that corvids shouldn’t be considered a pest due to them uprooting grass on lawns. I feel as this “aesthetic” can either be easily ignored or fixed. I fully support not managing lawns, as it increases biodiversity in ones yard. If restricted mowing prevents the culling of corvids and increases biodiversity, then I am all for it.

I wonder how this study can be implemented in places such as the United States. Would it greatly impact the mowing/lawn industry or would it be ignored? Many individuals really only like the aesthetic of how lawns look and don’t really care about the impact of how having one. I feel as this study would need more to help support the restricted mowing of lawns to convince areas as the United States.

Citation: Lequitte-Charransol, P., Jiguet, F. Restricted mowing reduces grass uprooting by urban crows. Eur J Wildl Res 67, 59 (2021). https://doi-org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/10.1007/s10344-021-01504-3

In Malaysia, many of their cities have monkeys interacting with urban areas. Some individuals label monkeys as ‘pests’, due to their behavior. There has be an increase of complaints of urban monkeys, this causes management strategies to mainly reduce human populations that impact animals welfare/conservation. This study aims to see how human activity influences the ecological activity’s of the long-tailed macaque.

Methods

The research took place in Bukit Melawati and Kuala Selangor, which are both known to be a popular tourism site. The study site was divide into 3 zones, these zones included high/medium/low traffic sites. These sites were determined by interviews with residents and determined by team observations.

The research used instantaneous scan sampling for behavior sampling. LTM were observed daily from 9:00 to 17:00, individuals were recorded at specific time points at varying intervals (3 -11 minutes long). A total of 1761 scans were conducted across all time points. Behaviors were categorized into aggression, self-grooming, feeding natural, feeding unnatural, inactive, affiliative interaction, sexual, and travel. Researcher also recorded the type of structures the LTM occupied.

The research analyzed the data by bootstrapping, using a generalized linear model, and a percentage calculation.

Figure 1 – Study area

Results

From the results it was found that the LTM were observed to be traveling, inactive, interacting with other monkeys, and feeding naturally in 94% of the scans (figure 2). Of all of the unnatural feeding, only 10/6% were by humans. Out of all of the inactive LTMS, 54% were alert inactive.

Figure 2. – Activity of LTM

Observations were mostly during the early morning, followed by early evenings, late evenings, late morning, and afternoon. But these results are not a true representation of LTM present but the amount of time observed. Figure 3A shows the activity budget proportions of LTM

Figure 3 – Activity budget based on time of day, zone, weather, and presence of humans

Based on figure 3B, it showed that most LTM were observed in medium traffic areas. LTM had more time feeding in low traffic zones compared to the rest. Which can lead to to how human presence having an effect on the LTM. In figure 3D, it showed that LTM fed 9.9% of time in the presence of humans compared to 12.8% of the time.

Conclusions.

From the study it showed that LTM can be highly adaptive as they alter their behavior to survive in urban areas. The study also showed that human presence influences LTM behavior, as seen from figure 3. They potentially see humans as threat, due to their feeding being higher when they are not in the presence of humans. This study can help future conservation efforts with LTM.

Study Limitation

I believe one major study limitation of this study was not considering age/sex categories. I believe if this study used that kind of category it would of be very useful. It could possibly show variation of the LTM.

Another study limitation from the research is that it was too short. The study I believed should of been much longer. The study was over a 4 month long period, which doesn’t seem like a lot of time to study behavioral changes of a species.

Entezami, M., Mustaqqim, F., Morris, E., Lim, E. S. H., Prada, J. M., & Paramasivam, S. J. (2024). Effect of human activity and presence on the behavior of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in an urban tourism site in Kuala Selangor, Malaysia. Animals, 14(8), 1173. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14081173

It is quite known that bees are one of the most famous pollinators, as they are said to be one of the top pollinators. Many factors such as pesticides, introduction of pathogens, climate change and habitat fragmentation all negatively affect bees. But one factor, urbanization, seems to be still understudied. It seems that there is a mix of both negative and positive effects on bees with urbanization. Social bees seem to thrive in urban areas and have an increased survival, while bees that nest in soils seem to be negatively impact. With this study its objective was to determine how urbanization and plant availability affect the richness, species abundance, functional characteristics and composition of bee communities in medium-sized cities.

The study area were 6 cities located in Brazil (southern Minas Gerais, Brazil: Alfenas, Poços de Caldas, Pouso Alegre, Varginha, Três Corações and Lavras, figure below). The cities were primarily made up of urban ecosystems made up of x<170000 inhabitants, agricultural landscapes, and forest area. 21 locations were selected across the 6 cities selected, with each location having an increasing gradient of impervious coverage (Figure below). To evaluate bee community, an active capture method was used to sample the bees in the cities. Sampling was performed within a radius of 200m from the central point of each location. Bees were collected on each plant for an approximate of 10 minutes. If 5 minutes passed and no bee were observed then the next plant was observed. Sampling of plants was also performed during sampling of bees. Bees were characterized under 3 functional groups, these groups being social behavior, nesting habit, and trophic specialization. Social behavior had 3 subgroups highly eusocial, primitively eusocial and solitary. Nesting habit had 2 groups above ground nesting and below ground nesting. For trophic specialization 2 groups were considered, they were generalist or specialist.

From this study it found a total of 4279 bee specimens that belonged to the 5 subfamilies that occur in Brazil (Andreninae, Apinae, Colletinae, Halictinae and Megachilinae). In order the richness of the bees were Apinae, Halictinae, Megachilinae, Andreninae, Colletinae. Regarding plants a total of 858 plants of 190 species were found.

It was found that the total bee richness was mainly affected by impervious cover, grass cover, and landscape heterogeneity with a radius of 750m and 1000m. Impervious cover showed a negative effect on total richness in 1000m, while landscape heterogeneity showed a positive effect for 750m and 1000m. Grass cover was deemed important and was show in the models. (Figures below)

Richness of above ground nesting bees and generalist bees were influenced positively by the diversity of landscape radius of 750m and 1000m. The abundance and below ground nesting bees was influenced positively by an increase of grass cover in the 1000m radius.

The models that helped explain the bee community diversity to plants is added below.

Overall the study found that an increase of impervious cover led to a decrease of bee species richness, especially affecting ground nesting bees. But solitary bees abundance increase as grass cover increased. It found that greater landscape diversity in urban areas support species richness. The study helps argue for the need of habitat diversity and native plants for bees in urban environments.

I overall really enjoyed reading this study as I enjoy reading about insects and their relation to conservation, ecology, etc. Reading this study made me wonder what urban designs could help promote bee richness or promote the bee populations. I believe that if more bee friendly designs were implemented it could definitely help improve the species. Maybe a structure that could help solitary bees when an increase of impervious surfaces are abundant. I also wonder how this study would be in areas that have a higher urbanization rate. Would the results be similar or would the results be drastically different?

Tavares Brancher, K.P., Graf, L.V., Heringer, G. & Zenni, R.D. (2024) Urbanization and abundance of floral resources affect bee communities in medium-sized neotropical cities. Austral Ecology, 49, e13299. Available from: https://doi-org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/10.1111/aec.13299