{"id":2094,"date":"2023-06-09T01:09:58","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T23:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/?p=2094"},"modified":"2023-08-02T18:36:06","modified_gmt":"2023-08-02T16:36:06","slug":"severe-covid-19-lockdowns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/2023\/severe-covid-19-lockdowns\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild mammals moved farther during severe COVID-19 lockdowns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Human behaviour changed dramatically during lockdowns in the first months of the global COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in behavioural changes of land mammals. This is according to a study published in Science<\/em> today by a large international research team led by Marlee Tucker, an ecologist at Radboud University, with the participation of researchers from the Institute of Nature Conservation Polish Academy of Sciences. Wild mammals travelled longer distances and occurred closer to roads during strict lockdowns.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tucker and 174 colleagues analysed global data from land mammals tracked by GPS devices. \u201cThere were many media reports that nature was recovering during those first lockdowns. For example, cougars were roaming the streets of Santiago, Chile, but we wanted to know: is there any evidence of this? Or were people simply paying more attention to everything while being at home?\u201d<\/p>\n

Movements of mammals
\n<\/strong>Tucker and colleagues collated data from the movements of 43 different species of land mammals from around the world. In total, more than 2,300 individuals were included: from elephants and giraffes to bears and deer. The researchers compared the mammals’ movements during the first period of lockdowns, from January to mid-May 2020, with movements during the same months a year earlier. \u201cWe saw that during strict lockdowns, animals travelled up to 73 percent longer distances in a period of 10 days than the year before, when there were no lockdowns. We also saw that animals occurred on average 36 percent closer to roads than the year before. This is probably because those roads were quieter during strict lockdowns,\u201d said Tucker.<\/p>\n

There are several explanations for these results: there were fewer people outside during strict lockdowns, giving animals the opportunity to explore new areas. \u201cIn contrast, in areas with less strict lockdowns, we saw that animals travelled shorter distances. This may have to do with the fact that during those lockdowns, people were actually encouraged to go into nature. As a result, some nature areas were busier than before COVID-19,\u201d says Thomas Mueller, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre and Goethe University Frankfurt, who designed the study together with Tucker.<\/p>\n

Unique opportunity
\n<\/strong>The lockdowns provided a unique opportunity to study the effects of an abrupt change in human presence on wildlife. \u201cWe have followed a similar approach in Tatra National Park, where we have investigated the levels of cortisol- the stress hormone-in three mammal species during the lockdown and in the same period, but the following year\u201d, says Agnieszka Sergiel, co-author of the study. This study is currently ongoing. \u201cThis research also shows that roads stop being a barrier when the human traffic also stops and that animals respond to these changes in human behaviour rather quickly. This means that making some adjustments to our own behaviour could have a positive effect on animals,\u201d says Nuria Selva, co-author of the study.<\/p>\n

Link to the paper: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Tucker et al. 2023. Behavioral responses of terrestrial mammals to COVID-19 lockdowns. Science 380 (6649): 1059-1064<\/a><\/p>\n

DOI: 10.1126\/science.abo6499<\/p>\n

by Nuria Selva i Agnieszka Sergiel<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Human behaviour changed dramatically during lockdowns in the first months of the global COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in behavioural changes of land mammals. This is according to a study published in Science today by a large international research team led by Marlee Tucker, an ecologist at Radboud University, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2094"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2139,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094\/revisions\/2139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carpathianbear.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}