© 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.
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.
