Aircraft sound exposure leads to song frequency decline and elevated aggression in wild chiffchaffs

Wolfenden, A; Slabbekoorn, Hans; Kluk, Karolina; Kort, Selvino R. de

doi:10.1111/1365-2656.13059

Cited by 35 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 69 publications

(107 reference statements)

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“…Singing earlier or singing less may also make birds more vulnerable to territorial intrusions and may force individuals into physical fight more often, which may bring risk of injury and increased chance of predation. This matches well with a pattern of noise-dependent aggression levels (Slabbekoorn, 2013), for which there is growing evidence from birds in cities (Phillips and Derryberry, 2018) and around airports (Wolfenden et al, 2019). Lower song activity during noisy daytime conditions, as found in our study, also matches with noise-induced rise in vigilance and distraction, which has been shown to reduce foraging efficiency (Quinn et al, 2006;Campbell et al, 2019).…”

Section: Causes and Consequencessupporting

confidence: 90%

Variation in Diurnal Patterns of Singing Activity Between Urban and Rural Great Tits

et al. 2020

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Human settlements and activities alter the natural environment acoustically and visually. Traffic noise and street lights are two of the most prominent pollutants which may affect animal activity patterns. Birds in urban areas have been reported to sing nocturnally and to have an earlier dawn chorus compared to their rural counterparts. However, few studies have measured whether singing more at night or earlier in the morning means singing less during daytime. It is therefore unclear whether they shift or extend or overall increase their activities. Furthermore, few studies on anthropogenic noise-related shifts in song activity replicated well at the habitat level. We recorded singing activity in urban and rural great tits (Parus major) for 24 h and sampled 11 urban-rural pairs of territories, inside and outside 11 different cities across the Netherlands. We found that urban birds sing earlier during the day, have similar singing effort in the dawn chorus, but sing less than rural birds during the rest of the day. The shift in timing between urban and rural birds was 22 min on average and resulted in more songs for urban birds during a less noisy time of the day. The lower singing activity over the day made that urban birds sang less when it was more noisy compared to the natural rhythm of rural great tits. We currently lack insight into whether these differences yield any positive or negative fitness consequences, but it is a clear case of how anthropogenic effects on the natural environment influence fundamental aspects of daily life in the animal communities with which we share the urban habitat.

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Section: Causes and Consequencessupporting

confidence: 90%

Variation in Diurnal Patterns of Singing Activity Between Urban and Rural Great Tits

et al. 2020

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“…2016, Wolfenden et al . 2019), in an attempt either to overcome noise disrupting environmental cues (‘masking’, Lohr et al . 2003) or to draw attention to a potential threat (risk perception, Halfwerk et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on past noise research, we predicted species richness would decline because part of the bird community would respond by decreasing vocalizations in the presence of aircraft noise (Francis et al 2009, Proppe et al 2013, McClure et al 2013, Manzanares Mena & Mac ıas Garcia 2018. However, some bird species have demonstrated a heightened vocalization response to noise due to masking or risk perception (Potash 1972, Brumm 2004, Patricelli & Blickley 2006, D ıaz et al 2011, R ıos-Chel en et al 2012, Dominoni et al 2016, Wolfenden et al 2019, in an attempt either to overcome noise disrupting environmental cues ('masking', Lohr et al 2003) or to draw attention to a potential threat (Table 1) on observed vocal richness by minute when numerical and categorical terms were held at their median and mode, respectively (n = 520). The points are raw richness count data for each minute sampled, the horizontal bars are model-derived species richness estimates and the shaded areas represent 95% confidence intervals.…”

Section: Site Differences In Response To Aircraftmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most previous research specifically addressing bird vocal response to aircraft noise has focused on populations near airports, which were documented to alter song composition (Sierro et al 2017, Wolfenden et al 2019 and advance the dawn chorus (Gil et al 2015, Dominoni et al 2016. Another study conducted near a military training area demonstrated changes in the vocal behaviour and species distribution of Harlequin Ducks Histrionicus histrionicus in response to jet overflights, with long-term effects on individual energy budget and potentially on fitness (Goudie & Jones 2004).…”

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Insights on the effect of aircraft traffic on avian vocal activity

Vincelette

Buxton

Kleist

et al. 2020

Ibis

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Aircraft noise is pervasive across the USA, including in national parks, but its effects on wildlife remain unresolved. As with other noise sources, aircraft noise may affect species physiology and behaviour by being perceived as a threat, distracting individuals, or degrading the sensory environment. This study aimed to understand the effect of aircraft traffic and associated noise on the richness of bird vocalization activity in a remote national park in the USA. We used a continent‐wide acoustic dataset encompassing over 30:00 h of annotated recordings to identify two geographically similar sites with high rates of bird vocalizations and both high and low rates of aircraft noise. We selected sites in Denali National Park, both of which experience little human presence, and quantified the richness of bird vocalizations before, during and after aircraft events. We present evidence of a community‐level behavioural response to aircraft noise, with increased bird vocalization richness after aircraft events at a site with relatively lower aircraft noise. At the site with low rates of aircraft noise, we found bird vocalization richness did not significantly change during an aircraft event but did increase after an aircraft event. At the site with high rates of aircraft noise, bird vocalization richness did not significantly change during or after an aircraft event. This study provides new insights into wildlife responses to aircraft traffic and associated noise and highlights the importance of noise research in the management of relatively quiet and undisturbed landscapes.

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“…Although road traffic noise is probably the most prevalent source of noise of human origin, airports represent another interesting scenario to address the impact of noise pollution on wildlife. Since aircraft noise is one of the loudest and most disturbing sounds experienced by humans (Pepper et al 2003), with aircrafts reaching peaks of > 110 dB, wildlife living nearby airports could also be suffering from the exposure to chronic bursts of aircraft noise (Wolfenden et al 2019). Empirical work in rats and humans has shown that aircraft noise is capable of raising oxidative stress levels (Kröller-Schön et al 2018), molecules related to stress (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of growing up in the city or near an airport on the physiological stress of tree sparrow nestlings (Passer montanus)

et al. 2021

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Urbanization constitutes one of the major transformations of natural habitats, creating new areas characterized by multiple potential wildlife stressors. Birds that live in highly anthropized zones are confronted with physiological and behavioural challenges caused by these stressors. Here, we investigated if several health parameters differed between three subpopulations of tree sparrow nestlings subjected to different levels of anthropogenic pollution, and particularly noise pollution: a quiet rural area, a noisy rural area adjacent to an airport and a heavily urbanized area. We compared body condition, oxidative stress markers and baseline corticosterone levels, expecting urban nestlings to be in overall worse condition as compared to rural (rural and rural airport) birds. In addition, we expected nestlings exposed to aircraft noise to show intermediate stress levels. We found that rural-airport nestlings had the highest levels of antioxidant capacity of plasma and did not differ from rural counterparts in the rest of the parameters. By contrast, urban nestlings were in slightly worse body condition and had lower antioxidant capacity than rural and rural-airport individuals. Our results suggest that aircraft noise does not constitute a significant stressor for nestlings. In contrast, urban conditions constitute a more challenging situation, negatively impacting different physiological systems. Although nestlings seem able to buffer these challenges in the short-term, further research should explore the long-term potential consequences of early exposure to these conditions.

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Aircraft sound exposure leads to song frequency decline and elevated aggression in wild chiffchaffs

Cited by 35 publications

References 69 publications

Variation in Diurnal Patterns of Singing Activity Between Urban and Rural Great Tits

Variation in Diurnal Patterns of Singing Activity Between Urban and Rural Great Tits

Insights on the effect of aircraft traffic on avian vocal activity

Influence of growing up in the city or near an airport on the physiological stress of tree sparrow nestlings (Passer montanus)

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