Data collection
Data on the birds’ reproductive success and the number of humans present at nest sites were collected as part of a long-term, ongoing monitoring project in Hungary, in which we investigate the impacts of urbanization on populations of great tits. The great tit is an insectivorous passerine bird that is widespread across the Western Palearctic, occupies both urban and forest habitats, readily accepts nestboxes, and shares many important ecological traits with other tit or chickadee species also occurring in urban habitats27. These traits make this species an ideal model organism for studying the effects of the anthropause on wildlife in different environments.
Study sites
We monitored breeding great tit populations and also collected human presence data in two urban areas and at one forest study site. In one of the urban sites, Veszprém (47°05′17.29″N, 17°54′29.66″E; human population: c. 56,000; the monitoring scheme started in 2013), the nestboxes were placed in public green spaces (public parks, university campuses, a bus station, and a cemetery) that are surrounded by built-up areas and roads, and experience frequent anthropogenic disturbance. At the other urban size, Budapest (47°30′27.4″N, 19°01′03.4″E; the capital city of Hungary, human population: c. 1.75 million; the monitoring scheme started in 2019), the nestboxes were placed in two public urban parks, located c. 400 m from each other in the city core area and separated by high-traffic roads. The parks are freely accessible to residents and are heavily embedded within the urban matrix. At both urban sites, most of the nestboxes are distributed along paths or walking trails. Even though the two cities greatly differ in their size and human population, our urban study plots in both cities have similar general characteristics: these are surrounded by built-up areas, are at a similar distance (c. 3–4 km) from the nearest forested areas (for Veszprém, this is the forest at Vilma-puszta: 47°05′06.7″N, 17°51′51.4″E; for Budapest, this is the forest at Normafa: 47°30′27.7″N 18°57′51.1″E), and nests also experienced a similar level of human disturbance in the pre-COVID reference period (Fig. 1b). The forest site, Szentgál (47°06′39.75″N, 17°41′17.94″E; the monitoring scheme started in 2013), is a mature woodland, dominated by beech (Fagus sylvatica) and hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), located 3 km away from the nearest human habitation (Szentgál, human population: c. 2.800), c. 20 km and 110 km away from Veszprém and Budapest, respectively. There are no paved roads in the forest, and the area is relatively free from human disturbance although it experiences occasional hunting and logging activity.
Human presence around nests
To quantify human presence at our study sites for 2020 and the reference years we counted the number of humans (motorized vehicles excluded) during each nest check, for 30 s, in the proximity of the nestboxes (for similar approach see Corsini et al. 2019). The number of humans was recorded within a 50-m radius of the nestboxes between 2013 and 2018 (Veszprém, Szentgál), and within a 15-m radius distance in 2019–2020 (all sites). We changed the counting distance in 2019 due to methodological reasons following28. However, to be able to compare the human presence data of 2020 in Veszprém and Szentgál to that recorded in earlier years, in 2020 we performed the counts with both the 15-m and the 50-m radius distances at these two sites. Thus, for 2020 in Veszprém, we have human presence data both for the 50-m and the 15-m radius areas that were used in the forest-city and the between-cities comparisons, respectively (see below). For each year and study site, we used human presence data only from seasonally first broods (defined below), and only from nests where there were either already eggs or nestlings in the nest, resulting in 9.4 ± 3.6 (mean ± SD) observations per brood which is a reliable indicator of human presence28.
Birds’ reproductive success
We monitored nestboxes each year at least twice a week from mid-March to early June to record laying and hatching dates, clutch size, hatching success, and the number of nestlings in active great tit nests. We ringed nestlings at day 14–16 post-hatch (i.e. a few days before fledging; hatching day of the first chick = day 1) with a numbered metal ring and also recorded their body mass (to the nearest 0.1 g), tarsus length (to the nearest 0.1 mm and following Svensson’s ‘alternative’ method29) and wing length (from the bend of the wing to the longest primary; to nearest 1 mm). Shortly after the expected date of fledging we carefully examined the nest material to identify and count the number of chicks that died after ringing (due to e.g. starvation, predation) that we included in the calculation of nestling survival (detailed below). The aim of this is to get a more accurate estimate for the number of offspring that could indeed fledge from the nest. The number of broods (nestlings) that suffered partial or complete mortality between ringing and fledging were: n = 6 (13) in Budapest (2019–2020), n = 70 (152) in Veszprém (2013–2020), and n = 25 (83) in the Szentgál forest.
From these data we determined clutch size (the maximum number of eggs observed in a brood), hatching success (the proportion of chicks hatched / eggs laid), the number of fledglings, and nestling survival (the proportion of fledged young / hatched chicks). The number of fledglings (i.e. the number of young fledged successfully) was calculated as the number of chicks ringed minus the number of chicks found dead in the nest after the ringing. We involved only seasonally first breeding attempts (as this period overlapped with the lockdown period; detailed at the Statistical analyses), and defined first broods as follows. In our study system breeding great tits are captured on their nests and receive a unique combination of colour rings. Active nests are also routinely equipped with a small, concealed video camera enabling us to reliably identify over 80% of breeding individuals each year30. Thus, relying on this setup, we considered a clutch as a first breeding attempt of a pair if it was initiated before the date of the first egg laid in the earliest second clutch at that site by an individually identifiable (i.e. colour-ringed) female that successfully raised her first clutch (i.e. fledged at least one young) in that year.
Air pollution and meteorological conditions
To describe the levels of traffic-related air pollution (nitrogen dioxide [NO2], nitrogen oxides [NOX] and ozone [O3]) and the meteorological conditions (temperature and precipitation) at the two urban study sites (Veszprém and Budapest), we used data provided by the Hungarian Air Quality Monitoring Network and the Hungarian Meteorological Service, respectively. To better understand which aspect of the anthropause might have affected great tits’ breeding success we thus assessed if the lockdown affected air pollution levels differently at the two urban study sites (compared to 2019), or if weather conditions showed different fluctuations between 2019 and 2020 at the two cities. For more details on the statistical analyses and results, see ESM: Sect. 1.
Statistical analyses
The duration of the official restrictions on human mobility (lockdown) spanned between 28 March–4 May in Veszprém (calendar date: 88–125; 01 January = 1) and 28 March–18 May (88–139) in Budapest. During this period people were allowed to leave their homes e.g. to run essential errands including individual sport and recreational activities in public green spaces, although with keeping at least 1.5 m from each other (social distancing). Very importantly, from the point of view of our study, the period of movement restrictions had almost completely overlapped with the seasonally first breeding attempts (from egg-laying to fledging) of great tits at both urban sites. The date of laying the 1st egg (calendar date, mean ± SD) in Veszprém was 94.2 ± 6.4, while in Budapest 97 ± 7.8; the date of chick ringing and measuring in Veszprém was 128 ± 5.3, while in Budapest: 133 ± 9.1. Thus, we decided not to exclude any first broods based on the date in order to maximize our sample size. Similarly, the period from which we involved human presence data was also strongly overlapped with the duration of the movement restrictions in both cities. Therefore, in Veszprém, the calendar dates of the first and the last human count at each nest were 87–108 (median: 100) and 121–142 (median: 132), respectively, while in Budapest 87–128 (median: 98) and 118–155 (median: 128).
Human presence around nests
In accordance with our first objective (forest-city comparisons), we explored if the lockdown in 2020 caused any changes in human disturbance around the great tit nests. To do so, we compared the number of humans (50-m radius of the nests) between 2020 and the 2013–2018 reference period, separately for the forest (Szentgál) and urban (Veszprém) study sites. Note that in 2019, we did not collect data on human presence within a 50-m radius at Veszprém and Szentgál (see above: Data collection), therefore 2019 was not included in the reference period of this analysis. We, however, also compared human presence in Veszprém between 2019 and 2020 using the 15-m radius data which indicates a change that is consistent with the differences found using the 50-m radius data (detailed below).
First, we built generalized linear mixed-effects (GLM, lme4 R package) models with Poisson error distribution with the number of humans as the response variable, including year as a fixed factor and nestbox ID as random factor to control for non-independence of the data. Next, we extracted the mean values (least-squares means; package emmeans31) and associated standard errors for each year as estimated by the model. We computed the mean of these yearly mean estimates for the 2013–2018 reference period (i.e. calculated a single overall mean describing the whole reference period) and compared this long-term mean to the mean estimate of 2020 by calculating the linear contrast between them (with the ‘contrast’ function of the emmeans package), and expressed linear contrasts as 2020 minus the reference period.
For our second objective (between-cities comparisons), we compared the changes in human disturbance around the nestboxes at the two urban study sites, Veszprém and Budapest, using the number of humans recorded within the 15-m radius of the active nests in 2019 and 2020. We analysed the data from Budapest and Veszprém separately and built generalized linear mixed-effects models with Poisson error distribution with the number of humans (15-m radius of the nests) as the response variable, including year as a fixed factor and nestbox ID as random factor to control for non-independence.
Birds’ reproductive success
We used data from 2019 (reference; for justification see below in this section) and 2020 (lockdown). First, we constructed separate linear models to analyse each component of reproductive success (response variables), and for the forest-city and the between-cities comparisons. We used linear models (LM) for clutch size and the number of fledglings, generalized linear models (GLM, with quasi-binomial error distribution) for hatching success and nestling survival, and linear-mixed effects models (LME) for nestling body size traits (body mass, tarsus length, and wing length). Models on nestling body size traits contained nestlings’ age at ringing as a confounding variable (three-level factor: 14, 15, or 16 d of age) and brood ID as a random factor to control for the non-independence of chicks raised in the same brood. Finally, these models always contained a habitat (Veszprém or Szentgál) × year (2019 or 2020) interaction term for forest-city comparisons and a city (Budapest or Veszprém) × year (2019 or 2020) interaction term for between-cities comparisons. We checked assumptions of residuals’ normality and homogeneity of variance by inspecting the residuals plots which were respected for all models.
Next, to test the prediction for our first objective (forest-city comparisons), we extracted the mean values (least-squares means) and associated standard errors of each response variable for each habitat × year combination as estimated by the linear model’s interaction. Then, from these estimates, we calculated habitat contrasts, i.e. the mean forest-city difference (forest minus urban) for each year (i.e. for 2019 and 2020), and compared the mean habitat contrast for the 2019 reference year to the mean habitat contrast of 2020; for similar approach see14,32,33.
For our second objective (between-cities comparisons), we followed the same procedure as for the forest-city comparisons (detailed above) except that here we compared the differences between cities (Budapest minus Veszprém) in 2020 and 2019. These full models (i.e. for the forest-city and between-cities comparisons) are presented in Table S1–S2 (ESM: Sect. 2).
In our study, we chose 2019 as a reference year for multiple reasons. First, because this was temporally the closest year without a lockdown. Second, because for Budapest we have monitoring data only from 2019 to 2020, using 2019 and 2020 in all analyses makes the results more comparable. Finally, although we have monitoring data from a total of eight years (2013–2020) for Szentgál (forest site) and Veszprém (urban site), for the forest-city comparisons we did not include years before 2019 in the reference because we noticed a negative trend in birds’ reproductive success throughout the study years (Fig. S3). This trend was especially apparent in the forest population, and may have reduced the forest-city difference by the end of the study period. Indeed, 2019 and 2020 were amongst the poorest years and resulted in a very similar reproductive success between both years within both habitats (Fig. S3). Because such temporal trend may have confounded the comparisons of 2020 with earlier years, to take account for its effect, and to further justify our approach of using 2019 as the reference year, we conducted additional analyses on the birds’ reproductive success by comparing both 2019 and 2020 (separately) to the 2013–2018 long-term reference period. We predict that if 2019 and 2020 are similarly affected by the decreasing trend in reproductive success than then the differences between the long-term reference period and 2019 and 2020, respectively, should be similar. For the details of these long-term forest-city comparisons see ESM: Sect. 3 and Table S3).
Finally, we did not conduct the forest-city comparisons (first objective) between the forest site (Szentgál) and the other urban site (Budapest) for two reasons. First, because unlike to the Szentgál vs. Veszprém setup, we did not have an appropriate forest (control) location which is close to Budapest. Second, because conducting comparisons between the long-term data and 2019 and 2020, respectively (see: ESM Sect. 3) was not possible for Budapest because we do not have similar long-term data for the latter site.
Clutches that failed before reaching the incubation stage (due to predation or desertion; i.e. final clutch size was uncertain), suffered complete mortality due to weather (e.g. nestbox fall from the tree due to strong wind), and cases when complete or partial clutch or brood loss may have occurred due to the monitoring process (e.g. when a nestbox was dropped or when complete brood failure occurred soon after capturing a parent on the nest) were excluded from all analyses. In the analyses investigating the number of fledglings, fledging success, and nestling body size traits we involved nests only where at least one nestling hatched, and excluded broods that were involved in a food-supplementation experiment (as treatment group) during the nestling rearing period in 201714. We used the R 4.0.5 software environment for statistical analysis and creating figures34.
Ethical statement
All procedures were in accordance with Hungarian laws, and adhered to the ASAB/ABS guidelines for the use of animals in behavioural research and teaching. Permit to the use of animals in this study was provided by the National Scientific Ethical Committee on Animal Experimentation (permit number: PE-06/KTF/997–8/2018, FPH061/1329–5/2018, PE-06/KTF/06,543–7/2020 and FPH061/3036–4/2020). Permits to study protected species and access to protected areas were provided by the Middle Transdanubian Inspectorate for Environmental Protection, Natural Protection and Water Management (permit numbers: 31559/2011, 24,861/2014 and VE-09Z/03,454–8/2018, for working in Veszprém and Szentgál) and the Environment Protection and Nature Conservation Department of the Pest County Bureau of the Hungarian Government and the Mayor’s Office of Budapest (permit numbers: PE-06/KTF/997–8/2018, FPH061/1329–5/2018, PE-06/KTF/06,543–7/2020 and FPH061/3036–4/2020, for working in Budapest).
Source: Ecology - nature.com
