© Virginia Tech Scott Davies, a postdoctoral associate in biological sciences in the College of Science, measured territorial aggression in male song swallows at three rural and three urban sites in the New River Valley during the spring of 2015.
No need to head to the movie theater or download the video game app: Angry Birds can be found right in your backyard this summer—if you live in the suburbs, that is.
Virginia Tech researchers recently found in Southwest Virginia that
birds that live in suburban areas exhibit significantly higher levels of territorial aggression than their country counterparts. The results were published in
Biology Letters June 22.
"A possible reason for this is that these
birds have less space but better resources to defend," said Scott Davies, a biological sciences postdoctoral associate in the College of Science. "Living near humans provides better food and shelter, but it also means more competition for these limited resources."
Davies and co-author Kendra Sewall, an assistant professor of
biological sciences in the College of Science, measured territorial aggression in 35 urban and 38 rural male song sparrows at three rural and three urban sites in the New River Valley during the spring of 2015.