Airport noise predicts song timing of European birds

Abstract

Anthropogenic noise is of increasing concern to biologists and medical scientists. Its detrimental effects on human health have been well studied, with the high noise levels from air traffic being of particular concern. However, less is known about the effects of airport noise pollution on signal masking in wild animals. Here, we report a relationship between aircraft noise and two major features of the singing behavior of birds. We found that five of ten songbird species began singing significantly earlier in the morning in the vicinity of a major European airport than their conspecifics at a quieter control site. As birds at both sites started singing before the onset of air traffic in the morning, this suggests that the birds in the vicinity of the airport advanced their activity to gain more time for unimpaired singing before the massive plane noise set in. In addition, we found that during the day, chaffinches avoided singing during airplane takeoffs, but only when the noise exceeded a certain threshold, further suggesting that the massive noise caused by the airport can impair acoustic communication in birds. Overall, our study indicates that birds may be adjusting their mating signals and time budgets in response to aircraft noise.

European Blackbirds Exposed to Aircraft Noise Advance Their Chorus, Modify Their Song and Spend More Time Singing

“…Regarding birdsong, studies have shown a general pattern of song modifications that appear in response to noise, such as upshifted frequency (Slabbekoorn and Peet, 2003;Nemeth and Brumm, 2009;Verzijden et al, 2010;Bermúdez-Cuamatzin et al, 2012), increased song amplitude (Cynx et al, 1998;Brumm, 2004;Brumm et al, 2009), modifications in temporal parameters of song (Slabbekoorn and den Boer-Visser, 2006;Díaz et al, 2011;Ríos-Chelén et al, 2013) or changes in the timing of the dawn chorus (Fuller et al, 2007;Arroyo Solís et al, 2013;Dominoni et al, 2016). In many bird species, it has been found that populations living near anthropogenic noise sources sing at higher frequencies, partly avoiding masking (Slabbekoorn and Peet, 2003;Nemeth and Brumm, 2009;Verzijden et al, 2010;Ríos-Chelén et al, 2012;Roca et al, 2016).…”

“…There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that birds advance the onset of dawn chorus when living in noisy conditions (Fuller et al, 2007;Gil et al, 2014;Dominoni et al, 2016;Dorado-Correa et al, 2016). The question remains open as to whether this shift of singing activity is a byproduct of noise-induced perturbations on the birds' behavior, as suggested by some authors (Arroyo Solís et al, 2013), or an adaptive modification to counter act the effect of noise later on the day (Fuller et al, 2007;Dominoni et al, 2016). Taking an optimization approach and assuming that singing earlier has negative effects due to energy balance and predation (McNamara et al, 1987), it would be expected that birds should advance dawn chorus in order to avoid noisy conditions if this leads to improved signal transmission.…”

“…In fact, because of the motivational role of the twitter during male-male interactions and its seasonal variation (increasing with date), it has been suggested that larger twitter proportions are due to the increased density of territories and the advanced breeding season in urban habitats (Dabelsteen, 1984;Ripmeester et al, 2010). Blackbirds have also been found to advance the onset of dawn song when living next to urban infrastructures such as cities or airports (Nordt and Klenke, 2013;Gil et al, 2014;Dominoni et al, 2016). In such cases, there is likely a compound effect of artificial lighting and anthropogenic noise, which are not always easy to tear apart.…”

“…In such cases, there is likely a compound effect of artificial lighting and anthropogenic noise, which are not always easy to tear apart. When acoustic and light pollution occur simultaneously, light seems to have a stronger impact over the advance of dawn song than noise (Nordt and Klenke, 2013;Da Silva et al, 2016), but birds also advance dawn chorus near large airports in places where artificial lighting is absent (Dominoni et al, 2014(Dominoni et al, , 2016Gil et al, 2014).…”

“…Although aircraft noise may show similar acoustic spectral characteristics, it has definitely different temporal characteristics. The temporal structure of aircraft noise events are usually louder, and more spaced over time, leaving silent intervals in between (Dominoni et al, 2016), in contrast to the continuous emission of car traffic noise (Arroyo Solís et al, 2013). Secondly, we investigated the onset and duration of dawn chorus.…”