Seagulls are ‘thriving’ in cities and it isn’t as a consequence of their snack-swiping expertise
Cliff nesting gulls are thriving in urban areas for one unexpected reason.
Boffins have discovered that coastal cliff dwelling seagulls are bossing it in the big smokes thanks to their bigger brains.
Gulls that nest on rocky cliffs may be more adapted at breeding in urban environments and nesting on rooftops, according to researchers at the University of Exeter.
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Ecologists from the university have found over half of the cliff-nesting gull have been studied nesting in towns and cities compared to the 11% of gulls that don’t.
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And these gulls have larger brains than the species that don’t breed on cliffs.
Researchers at Exeter’s Cornwall campus in Penryn, looked into how brain size, wing shape, nesting habits and love for the urban jungle all link up.
The study suggests birds like the Herring Gull, the Lesser Black-backed Gull and the Black-legged Kittiwake are adaptable enough to breed in trickier spots.
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Dr Madeleine Goumas, lead author and former Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Centre for Ecology and Conservation, said: “Many people will be familiar with gulls nesting and foraging in urban areas.”
She added: “It’s not something you might expect from a seabird, so we wanted to try to understand why they do it.”
Dr Goumas and her team studied research databases to compile records of gulls nesting and foraging in urban environments. They documented the habits of different species, recording that out of 50 gull species, 13 have been observed breeding in urban areas, with an equal number known as “urban foragers”. Nine gull species nest and scavenge in the cityscapes.
Dr Neeltje Boogert, a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow, said: “We found that gull species with larger brains are more likely to be cliff-nesters, and cliff-nesting species are more likely to breed in urban areas.”
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She added: “We also found that cliff-nesting is probably not something that was shared by the ancestor of gulls, so it is a relatively recent adaptation.”
Dr Goumas pointed out that this behaviour seen in all gulls, explaining that non-cliff nesting gulls nest exclusively on the ground, while cliff-nesting species nest either on the cliffs or on the ground.
She added: “This suggests that bigger brains enable these gull species to be flexible with regard to where they choose to nest, and this allows them to use unconventional sites, like buildings, for raising their young.”
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