2026/07/01 by F. Blake Morton, Dylan Thompson‐Jones, Kristy A. Adaway +5 · 1 voice
Environmental Science · Psychology · Veterinary · #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation #Primate Behavior and Ecology #Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
paper · doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2026.123644
Urbanization is one of the most important forms of human-driven landscape change, altering wildlife populations in unprecedented ways. In terms of behaviour, urbanization is hypothesized to increase the likelihood of observing urban populations touching, exploring and solving novel food-related tasks compared to rural ones. However, little is known about the impact of spatiotemporal patterns of urbanization, particularly historical patterns of change, on these behaviours. We tested this in the world's most urbanized carnivore, the red fox, Vulpes vulpes , by introducing novel food-related tasks (puzzle feeders) to 284 sites throughout Great Britain. We compared tactile and problem-solving behaviours in rural populations, recently colonized urban populations and long-established urban populations (>40 years). Foxes from 27.4% of locations touched the tasks and foxes from 12.4% of locations solved them. Urban foxes were more likely than rural ones to touch tasks. Exploration time, exploratory diversity and latency to touch tasks did not differ significantly across urban and rural locations. Urbanization rate from 1994 to 2020 (26 years) did not significantly predict the likelihood of foxes touching or solving tasks across locations. Older urban populations, particularly from London, spent more time exploring tasks and displayed greater exploratory diversity and higher problem-solving success, despite more recent urban populations being equally likely to touch them. Collectively, our findings suggest that certain population characteristics, such as the likelihood of touching/engaging with novelty, potentially emerge early in urbanization while other characteristics, such as greater exploratory and innovative behaviours, may emerge after long-term urban exposure across many decades.