COVID‐19 Lockdowns Influence Foraging Behavior in California Ground Squirrels

2025/01/29 by Jennifer E. Smith, Erin S. Person, Andy Sih +1 · 1 voice
Medicine · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Zoonotic diseases and public health #Human-Animal Interaction Studies #Viral Infections and Vectors

paper · pdf · doi:10.1002/bes2.2232

Abstract

Photo GalleryPhoto 1.California ground squirrels (Otospermophilus beecheyi) trade-off between food consumption and safety from threats in their environment, often giving up on foraging opportunities to scan their environment for predators.It was not previously understood how human (and domestic dog) presence in combination with exposure to natural predators and habitat features influences their fear responses.COVID-19 lockdowns offered a natural experiment to investigate the extent to which human presence influenced squirrel perceptions of safety.Photo credit:

Discussions

• New in our Bulletin's Photo Gallery: A recent study published in Ecology found that during COVID-19 lockdowns, as human presence declined, ground squirrels became more fearful of birds of prey See mo [bsky, 19 points, 0 comments]

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