Species sensitivities to a global pollutant: A meta-analysis on acoustic signals in response to anthropogenic noise.

Hansjoerg P Kunc,Rouven Schmidt

doi:10.1111/gcb.15428

Abstract

Anthropogenically driven environmental changes affect our planet at an unprecedented rate. Among these changes are those in the acoustic environment caused by anthropogenic noise, which can affect both animals and humans. In many species, acoustic communication plays a crucial role to maintain social relationships by exchanging information via acoustic signals. However, how species relying on acoustic communication differ in their adjustments to anthropogenic noise is little understood. Yet, this is crucial because protecting species effectively depends on our capability to predict how species differ in their response to human‐induced environmental changes. Using a phylogenetically controlled meta‐analysis, we quantified differences in adjustments of acoustic signals to anthropogenic noise among species. The effect sizes included in the analysis were obtained from noise exposure experiments, as only carefully controlled experiments allow to establish cause‐and‐effect relationships. We found that animals changed acoustic signals when exposed to noise, but the magnitude and the direction of adjustments differed among species. Given the importance of communication in the animal kingdom, these adjustments can affect social relationships in many species. The diversity of responses among species highlights the necessity to assess the effect of environmental stressors not only for a few species, because an effect may be positive in one species but negative in another depending on the species’ biology. Thus, an effective conservation approach to protect different species is to preserve natural soundscapes of ecosystems to which species have adapted to by reducing or mitigating the emission of anthropogenic noise into the environment.

Highlights

Driven environmental changes affect our planet at an unparalleled scale and are considered to be a key threat to biodiversity and the function of ecosystems (Stenseth et al, 2002; Walther et al, 2002)
Our analysis shows that animals adjust their signals to anthropogenic noise by changing individual signal components, which is reflected in the magnitude of responses deviating from zero in most cases
Animals experimentally exposed to anthropogenic noise adjusted their acoustic signals

Summary

| INTRODUCTION

Driven environmental changes affect our planet at an unparalleled scale and are considered to be a key threat to biodiversity and the function of ecosystems (Stenseth et al, 2002; Walther et al, 2002). KUNC and SCHMIDT play a critical role in eroding biodiversity such as changes in the acoustic environment caused by anthropogenic noise In both aquatic and terrestrial habitats, major sources of anthropogenic noise are associated with transportation networks, which are growing faster than the human population (Barber et al, 2010). Understanding the effects of human-induced environmental changes, such as anthropogenic noise, on animals is crucial because it allows to predict how species will respond to such changes. An increasing number of studies have investigated the effects of anthropogenic noise on acoustic communication Such single studies can neither provide a holistic understanding of the potential effects of noise nor unravel potential species sensitivities to this novel environmental stressor. We predicted an increase in (b) minimum frequency, (c) dominant frequency, and (d) signal duration, and that the inconsistencies among species are low. The degree to which species adjust signal components in response to noise and the potential inconsistencies among species will allow us to identify those signal components and species that are sensitive to anthropogenic noise

| Literature search and study selection criteria

| DISCUSSION

| CONCLUSIONS