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<div><font face="Arial">Biology Letters Published 19 April 2016<br>
.DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0113<br>
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<b>When the birds go unheard: highway noise disrupts information
transfer between bird species</b><br>
Aaron M. Grade, Kathryn E. Sieving<br>
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<b>Abstract</b><br>
<u><b>http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/12/4/20160113</b></u
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<div><font face="Arial">Highway infrastructure and accompanying
vehicle noise is associated with decreased wildlife populations in
adjacent habitats. Noise masking of animal communication is an
oft-cited potential mechanism underlying species loss in
sound-polluted habitats. This study documents the disruption of
between-species information transfer by anthropogenic noise. Titmice
and chickadees broadcast specific calls to alert kin of predator
threats, and sympatric vertebrates eavesdrop on these alarm calls to
avoid predators. We tested if tufted titmouse alarm call eavesdropping
by northern cardinals is disrupted by road noise. We broadcast
recorded alarm calls to cardinals in natural areas near and far from
highways. Cardinals reliably produced predator avoidance responses in
quiet trials, but all birds in noisy areas failed to respond,
demonstrating that highway noise is loud enough to disrupt this type
of survival-related information via masking or cognitive distraction.
Birds in family Paridae are abundant, highly social and vocal
residents of woodlands across the Holarctic whose alarm calls are used
by many species to mediate predation risks. Our work suggests that
communication network disruption is likely to be widespread, and could
help explain the pattern of reduced biodiversity near
roadways.</font><br>
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color="#000000"><b> </b
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<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000">"I wonder
whether the process ordinarily referred to as growing up is not
actually a process of growing down; whether experience, so much touted
among adults as the thing children lack in, is not actually a
progressive dilution of the essentials by the trivialities of
living."</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000"><br>
Aldo Leopold<i>. A Sand County Almanac.</i> 1949, p.120</font></div>
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