The pampas of South America represent one of the most productive lands for agriculture in the world, and consequently this activity has expanded throughout the region, especially in Argentina. In this context, native fauna faces various risks associated with agriculture, with exposure to pesticides being one of the most dangerous and deadly. Assessing the impact of pesticides on wildlife becomes fundamental and the use of sentinel species emerges as an important tool to monitor environmental health.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEavesdropping is a widespread behaviour among animals, providing the receiver with valuable information to assess the habitat, resources or threats. This kind of behaviour has been reported for the burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia), which in its northern range lives in close association with fossorial mammals and eavesdrops on their alarm calls as indicators of risk. In their southernmost range, burrowing owls do not associate with mammals, but they are often found sharing foraging and nesting patches with the southern lapwing (Vanellus chilensis), a noisy, territorial and aggressive plover species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUrban areas expose wildlife to an array of novel predators, amongst which, humans and dogs are highly frequent. Thus, wild animals living in urban areas are forced to invest more time and energy in defence behaviours, which depend on how the risk is perceived and assessed. We experimentally tested whether Burrowing owls coming from rural and urban habitats showed differences in behavioural responses when facing humans and domestic dogs.
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