Experimental anthropogenic noise impacts avian parental behaviour, nestling growth and nestling oxidative stress

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.12.003

Animal Behaviour

Volume 136, February 2018, Pages 31-39

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.12.003 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Tree swallow nestlings and adults were exposed to traffic noise during breeding.
•
Noise-exposed nestlings had decreased body size and increased oxidative stress.
•
Noise exposure caused delayed fledging, but no difference in nestling survival.
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Negative nestling impacts are not explained by differences in parental behaviour.
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Our results suggest direct noise effects on nestlings.

Human-produced noise, from transport, urbanization and industry, is widespread. Studies of noise pollution show a wide range of effects on birds, such as alterations in communication, parental behaviour, physiology and reproductive success. These human-induced changes are likely to have long-term impacts, such as altered nestling physiology and survival, as well as reduced local population size. Further experimental field studies that simultaneously investigate the effects of noise exposure on avian behaviour, physiology and reproductive success are needed. Here, we used an experimental field study to investigate impacts of short-term traffic noise exposure on parental behaviour (i.e. vigilance and feeding rate), nestling body size and oxidative stress (as measured by oxidative status) and nestling fledging success in tree swallows, Tachycineta bicolor. Our results show negative consequences of traffic noise exposure, despite a relatively modest playback regime (6 h, every other day). Adults in noise-exposed territories were less vigilant earlier in the nestling period and fed at a higher rate later in the nestling period, compared to controls. However, increased feeding rate in noise-exposed nests did not compensate for noise impacts on nestlings: noise-exposed nestlings were smaller and had higher oxidative status, compared to control nestlings. Noise-exposed nestlings took longer to fledge, but we found no effect of noise on fledging success. These results highlight the potential long-term consequences of short-term noise exposure (decreased nestling size and increased oxidative status) and add to a growing body of literature, showing that noise pollution can negatively impact birds through both direct and indirect pathways.

Section snippets

General Field Methods

From April to June 2015, we monitored tree swallow activity at 30 nestboxes in Davis, CA (15 in Putah Creek Riparian Reserve and 15 in South Fork Preserve). Nestboxes were mounted to metal poles approximately 1.5 m above ground. They were checked every other day to record egg laying, incubation, hatching and fledging dates; thus, all phenological dates have an associated error of 1 day. Once incubation began, each nest was alternately assigned to the ‘noise’ (N = 15) or ‘control’ (N = 15) treatment,

Parental Behaviour

For feeding rate, we found an interaction effect between noise and nestling age, such that over time, feeding rate increased more in the noise treatment (i.e. greater slope), compared to the control (Table 1, Fig. 2a). For adult vigilance behaviour, we also found that noise interacted with nestling age and brood size (Table 1). Adults exposed to control conditions decreased vigilance with increased nestling age (Fig. 2b) and brood size, while vigilance for noise-exposed adults remained

Discussion

Overall, our results show negative impacts of traffic noise exposure during development, despite a relatively modest noise playback regime (6 h, every other day). We found that noise exposure during the nestling period altered adult behaviour, reduced nestling body size and increased nestling oxidative stress, compared to individuals exposed to control conditions. We did not find a difference in fledging success between noise and control treatments. Although our overall measure of reproductive

Acknowledgments

First, we thank the City of Davis for permitting our use of the South Fork Preserve and UC Davis for the use of Putah Creek Riparian Reserve. We thank M. Clapp, A. Krakauer, R. Logsdon, A. Perry, J. Phillips and B. Walsh for input on experimental design, as well as A. Bird, T. Hahn, C. Jones, A. Munson and A. Sih for helpful comments on the manuscript. We also thank our undergraduate field interns, without whom this research would not have been possible. Finally, we thank M. Vitousek for

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Experimental anthropogenic noise impacts avian parental behaviour, nestling growth and nestling oxidative stress

Highlights

Section snippets

General Field Methods

Parental Behaviour

Discussion

Acknowledgments

Cell

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology

Physiology & Behavior

Current Biology

Livestock Production Science

Animal Behaviour

Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part B: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Environmental Pollution

Animal Behaviour

Biological Conservation

Experimental Gerontology

Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part a: Molecular & Integrative Physiology

Current Biology

General and Comparative Endocrinology

Animal Behaviour

Animal Behaviour

Trends in Biochemical Sciences

Experimental cooling during incubation leads to reduced innate immunity and body condition in nestling tree swallows

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4

Journal of Statistical Software

Nestling diet, secondary sexual traits and fitness in the zebra finch

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Fecundity and survival in relation to resistance to oxidative stress in a free-living bird

Ecology

Experimental evidence for the effects of chronic anthropogenic noise on abundance of greater sage-grouse at leks

Conservation Biology

Experimental chronic noise Is related to elevated fecal corticosteroid metabolites in lekking male greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus)

PLos One

Traffic noise decreases nestlings' metabolic rates in an urban exploiter

Journal of Avian Biology

Group-living in cliff swallows as an advantage in avoiding predators

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

Blood sampling reduces annual survival in cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota)

Auk: Ornithological Advances

Correlates of oxidative stress in wild kestrel nestlings (Falco tinnunculus)

Journal of Comparative Physiology, B

Statistical computing: An introduction to data analysis using S-Plus

Effects of experimentally elevated traffic noise on nestling white-crowned sparrow stress physiology, immune function and life history

Journal of Experimental Biology

Oxidative status and fitness components in the Seychelles warbler

Functional Ecology

Long-term effects of brood size manipulation on morphological development and sex-specific mortality of offspring

Journal of Animal Ecology

Clutch size, breeding success, and parental survival in the tree swallow (Iridoprocne bicolor)

Evolution

The effects of highway noise on birds

Information on levels of environmental noise requisite to protect public health and welfare with an adequate margin of safety

Oxidants, oxidative stress and the biology of ageing

Nature

Road traffic and nearby grassland bird patterns in a suburbanizing landscape

Environmental Management

A framework for understanding noise impacts on wildlife: An urgent conservation priority

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

Landscape patterns of avian habitat use and nest success are affected by chronic gas well compressor noise

Landscape Ecology

Female oxidative status, egg antioxidant protection and eggshell pigmentation: a supplemental feeding experiment in great tits

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

Confronting multicollinearity in ecological multiple regression

Ecology

Noise affects nest-box choice of 2 competing songbird species, but not their reproduction

Behavioral Ecology