Study reveals impact of habitat disturbance on the Arabian babbler bird in the region

Among the animals most vulnerable to climate change and damage caused to the environment by human activity are social animals. These negative changes cause a decline in biodiversity and a growing danger of extinction of species whose intricate social structures and cooperative breeding behaviors are closely linked to their habitats. 

A new study led by Prof. Lee Koren of the Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University (BIU) in Ramat Gan looked into the profound effects of habitat disturbance on the Arabian babbler, a social bird known for its cooperative breeding.

The study, just published in the scientific journal Ecology Letters under the title “Living fast, dying young: Anthropogenic habitat modification influences the fitness and life history traits of a cooperative breeder,” is the first to combine the effects of habitat on both individual fitness and sociality. 

The study was based on a long-term dataset of an Arabian babbler population monitored since 1971 in the Sheizaf Nature Reserve located in Israel’s Arava desert. To test their hypotheses, they analyzed six years of data (2016 to 2021) collected from 570 individual birds belonging to 21 distinct social groups, comprising 211 breeding events within the Arabian babblers study population. 

The species (Argya squamiceps) a communally nesting bird that lives as part of groups along dried up river beds in Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Yemen. It has a long tail, rounded wings and strong legs and feet with rather-dull gray-brown feathers and dark streaks on the back. It communicates with chattering, trills, and whistles. The birds bathe and dance together, offer each other gifts, and sometimes even fight with each other for the privilege of helping another babbler. 

In modified habitats that are rich in natural resources, groups of babblers breed more and have greater productivity, but individual birds lived shorter lives than in natural habitats. Habitat modification favored a faster pace-of-life with lower dispersal, and birds that became dominant at younger ages, a fact that might be driven by higher death rates that served as opportunities for the dominant breeding positions, they wrote. 

Starting in the 1970s, the late Tel Aviv University zoologist and evolutionary biologist Prof. Amotz Zahavi studied babbler behavior and suggested that while the birds were regarded as very altruistic animals, their real aim in feeding others was to gain respect within the group. 

Analyzing the impact of habitat changes on the fitness and life history traits

BIU doctoral student Alex Alamán, under the supervision of Prof. Koren, conducted an extensive analysis of the impact of habitat changes on the fitness and life history traits of Arabian babblers. These birds live in groups of two to 20 individuals with a dominant breeding pair, their offspring, and helpers of the same species

 The researchers found that groups that lived in agricultural areas that had changed have a different social structure than groups in natural areas. In modified habitats, the birds achieved dominant status at a younger age and left their natal groups earlier compared to those in natural habitats. While agricultural areas had more breeding events and fledgling numbers, this did not result in higher recruitment due to lower survival rates among adolescent and adult birds than in natural areas.

“Modified habitats accelerate Arabian babblers’ major life-history events like becoming dominant and leaving the group in which they were born that are crucial for their social organization,” said Koren. “Our findings suggest that modified habitats may become ecological traps, attracting individuals due to increased breeding opportunities but ultimately reducing their survival rates.”

The research team included Dr. Oded Keynan of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beersheba and the Dead Sea and Arava Science Center (established by the Ministry of Science, Culture, and Sport and the regional councils and operated under BGU’s auspices), and Enrique Casas and Manuel Arbelo from the University of La Laguna in Spain, emphasizes the importance of considering the social dynamics and demography of social species in conservation plans. Their study underscores how environmental changes impair not only individual adaptation but also collaborative behaviors essential for species survival.

The scientists concluded that their pioneering research “opens new avenues for understanding the evolution of social behavior and the adaptation of collaborative species to environmental changes.” They added that conservation efforts account for the complex social structures of these animals and that the decline in populations needed to be dealt with effectively.  

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