No difference in reproductive investment or success across urban and rural breeding pairs in an urban-adapted songbird

Species classified as ‘urban-adapters’ are often assumed to thrive in cities because they are commonly found across the urbanization gradient. However, urban-living populations of many urban-adapted species have been found to have lower reproductive success relative to their rural counterparts. The European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is a common urban-adapted species found across most of the globe; while starlings have lowered reproductive success in urban areas in their native range, less is known about how urbanization impacts reproduction in their invasive ranges. We tested for differences in reproductive investment and success across urban and rural starling populations in Georgia, which is part of their North American invasive range. We found few differences in reproductive output for urban versus rural starlings—clutch size, egg mass, egg volume, incubation behavior, provisioning rates, brooding behavior and nestling wing chord were all similar across starling populations from mo..., , , # No difference in reproductive investment or success across urban and rural breeding pairs in an urban-adapted songbird

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3n5tb2rt7](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3n5tb2rt7)

## Description of the data and file structure

Reproductive and environmental parameters collected for European starling nesting attempts from nest boxes in metro-atlanta. 

### Files and variables

#### File: egg.csv

**Description:** Data file for egg size analyses

##### Variables

* Nest.ID: Unique ID for nest box
* Urbanization Status: dichotomous score based on UrbanizationScore value (urban or rural)
* Nest Attempt: Ordinal value for how many nesting attempts the breeding pair have attempted
* Egg.ID: Unique ID for each egg
* Lay date: Date each egg was laid in nest
* Length (mm): continuous variable
* Width (mm): continuous variable
* Mass (g): continuous variable
* Egg Age (days): Age of egg from lay date of egg to present date
* Clutch size: Number of eggs total in the nest
...