Noise pollution is a huge problem nowadays and keeps leading us to raise our voices in order to make ourselves heard. A new study says that bluebirds alter their songs making a statement against the background, modern-day’s noises produced mainly by humans.
THE STUDY ON BLUEBIRDS
A team of researchers led by Dr. Caitlin Kight from the University of Exeter studied male bluebirds which altered their pitch, volume and melody of their songs responding to increased background noises. The researchers discovered that the birds try to cut through the noise, producing songs that were louder and lower pitched. The study suggests that even animals can perceive noise pollution and try to fight it back, enabling experts to know more about how they respond to man-made noise pollution.
Dr. Kight is a behavioral ecologist at the University of Exeter and, for her research, she recorded 64 songs produced by 32 male bluebirds. After analyzing two songs from each male -one produced during quietest and one during loudest period of ambient noise- she found that as background noise increased the bluebirds changed their songs to melodies that were more likely to be heard by potential mates or rivals.
CITY AND FORESTS MAY SOUND SIMILAR
However, Dr. Kight says that sounds caused by traffic or in an urban environment, in general, are not that different from those produced in nature since there can be similarities in features like volume or timing. For example, as Knight says, traffic sounds sometimes may seem similar to sounds produced by waterfalls, and animals that have spent their lives in habitats with natural features may already have the flexibility to respond to noise pollution.
Even though, in the past, studies have shown that birds always sang differently in noisier areas, it was not immediately clear that they changed their vocal behaviors in real time.
CAN NOISE POLLUTION DESTROY US ALL?
Dr John Swaddle, co-author of the study, from the College of William and Mary in the United States, warns that the findings of the research is not evidence that the noise pollution is unharmful for wild animals, just because urban and natural sounds are sometimes similar.
After saying that the world has become a noisy place to live in, he stated that even the most flexible of species, like humans, will some day reach a threshold beyond which they will have difficulty communicating, creating an impact on their ability to breed successfully.
