RT Journal Article
T1 A timeline for the urbanization of wild birds: The case of the lesser kestrel
A1 Negro, Juan José
A1 Prenda Marín, José
A1 Ferrero, Juan José
A1 Rodríguez, Airam
A1 Reig Ferrer, Abillo
AB The Lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni) evolved as a separate species in the Old-World kestrel radiationstarting in the late Miocene. Given that the first cities were erected in the Holocene, this urban colonialraptor has only become a major town dweller recently in its evolutionary history. Today, more than 95%of lesser kestrel colonies in Spain and other Mediterranean countries are on buildings, and the remainingfew are on rocky outcrops, that may have been the original nesting substrate for this cavity-nesting bird.Lesser kestrel fossils are well represented in cave sites, and their paleontological distribution, spanningfrom the Early Paleolithic to the Epipaleolithic, agrees well with its current breeding distribution. Accordingto classical sources, such as the works of Columella and Pliny the Elder, and the presence of askeletal remain in a Roman villa near Madrid, lesser kestrels may have nested in buildings and in urbansettings for at least 2000e2500 years. However, there are no surviving colonies in structures older than1400 years in Andalusia, nor in Spain. For a sample of 349 colonies on ancient buildings, a majority of thestructures had been erected between the 15th and 17th centuries, this putting a time limit of about 300-600 years to the existence of those seemingly immemorial colonies. For specific towns and buildings,written references for the presence of lesser kestrel colonies do not go back more than two centuries. Infact, the Cathedral of Sevilla may be the structure with the longest continuous occupation by lesserkestrels recorded up to present time, from 1834 to 2020. Lesser kestrels were possibly too common inhuman settlements in the past as to be noted as special. This may explain the scarcity of references to thespecies until the 19th century. In any case, the same lack of information affects the other major Eurasianurban birds, as no timeline exist for the urbanization process of any other bird species. We propose thatlesser kestrels became urban breeders when both adequate cavities in buildings and cereal fields, wherethey capture their invertebrate prey, became available in their breeding range, several millennia ago.However, urban colonies, in contrast with the ones on stable geological substrates, have been forced tomove from building to building when older ones became ruinous or were rebuilt, but new structureswith suitable cavities became available throughout History.
PB Elsevier
SN 0277-3791
YR 2020
FD 2020-12
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/19116
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/19116
LA eng
NO Negro, J. J., Prenda Marín, J., Ferrero, J. J., Rodríguez, A., & Reig Ferrer, A. (2020). A timeline for the urbanization of wild birds: The case of the lesser kestrel. Quaternary Science Reviews, 249, 106638. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106638
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 30 may 2026