Exploring the effects of aircraft noise on bioacoustic activity in national parks

Abstract

In the course of measuring and analyzing environmental acoustic conditions in U. S. National Park units, a large number of acoustical recordings have been aurally reviewed by trained technicians who noted the presence of a wide variety of sound sources. For this presentation, we analyzed changes in bioacoustic activity in relation to sounds from nearby people and distant aircraft. A central question for our analysis was the relevant time scale of exposure, as it is plausible that natural choruses are affected both by the immediate stimuli they experience as well as their recent history of exposure to similar stimuli. The large sample size—600 000 observations—enabled us to investigate data-driven models that document the decay of effects with increasing time lag between exposure and response.