Research paperThe influence of road traffic on birds during autumn period: Implications for planning and management of road network
Introduction
In the annual life cycle of birds, migration takes up nearly one third of the year (Sillett & Holmes, 2002). During this period birds spend more time at stopover sites than actually flying (Wikelski et al., 2003). Indeed, foraging and resting may occupy birds for as much as 95% of the migration time (Hedenstrom and Alerstam, 1997, Alerstam, 2003). Some small passerines in particular are not capable of continuous flight during migration, so they stop frequently during their journey to restock the food resources necessary to fuel further flight (Berthold, 2001). During stopovers, birds have to quickly replenish their fat reserves (Moore, Gauthreaux, Kerlinger, & Simons, 1995). To do so, birds feed voraciously and compete for food; at the same time, however, they are exposed to attack from predators, infections and parasites (Hutto, 1985). Human activities are a significant factor affecting the migration of birds and the duration of their stays at stopover sites. Birds usually avoid sites subject to human interference, because this may have an adverse effect on their foraging (Burger & Gochfeld, 1998), territory use (Andersen, Rongstaf, & Mytton, 1990), survival (West et al., 2002) and numbers (Fernández-Juricic, 2002). The march of civilisation is unceasing, and urbanisation is encroaching on to many areas utilised by animals, including birds (Wight, 2002, Christ et al., 2003). The losses and degradation of habitats used by migrating birds are also contributing to the fall in numbers of many species (Sauer et al., 2011). The construction of new roads has caused environmental degradation through habitat fragmentation and noise pollution (Šálek, Svobodová, & Zasadil, 2010). The negative impact of road traffic on animals has been reported in the literature (Fahrig et al., 1995, Forman and Sperling, 2003, Fahrig and Rytwinski, 2009) and most papers describe the adverse influence of traffic noise on birds (e.g. Reijnen et al., 1997, Kuitunen et al., 2003, Pescador and Peris, 2007), many of them highlighting the rapid decrease in the density and diversity of birds near roads carrying heavy traffic (Palomino and Carrascal, 2007, Polak et al., 2013). Disturbance due to vehicle lights, traffic noise, pollutants in food and the movements of people have been pinpointed by many authors (Pocock and Lawrence, 2005, Wood and Yezerinac, 2006, Slabbekoorn and Ripmeester, 2007, Summers et al., 2011). Mortality as a result of collisions with vehicles is the most important negative effect of roads (Orłowski, 2005, Orłowski, 2008). Even so, some species of birds have adapted to an existence near busy roads (Adams and Geis, 1981, Benitez-López et al., 2010). Although some birds are able to modify their behaviour in a noisy environment (Brumm & Slabbekoorn, 2005), a high level of noise may impair the transmission of sound signals (Kuitunen et al., 2003, Leonard and Horn, 2008, Salaberria and Gil, 2010, Halfwerk et al., 2011).
However, while most papers describing the negative effects of road infrastructure on birds focus on the breeding season, we still know too little about how traffic noise affects avian ecology in the non-breeding period. The “phantom road” experiment, recently carried out during the autumn migration in Idaho, USA, has provided compelling evidence that traffic noise is the main factor impacting adversely on migrating birds near roadways (McClure, Ware, Carlisle, Kaltenecker, & Barber, 2013). In this study the researchers deployed loudspeakers that emitted artificial road noise in a forest. They tested the impact of noise only, avoiding bias from other factors such as light, vehicle movements, pollution or disturbance by humans. The researchers found that the only important factor reducing the density of birds was the noise emitted from loudspeakers.
The principal objective of the present work was therefore to determine the effect of traffic noise on the numbers, species richness and spatial distribution of birds during the autumn migration period. The null hypothesis to be tested was the assumption that the utilisation of a road by vehicles would not cause the numbers and species richness of birds in the vicinity of that road to drop. In the alternative hypothesis we assumed that, in connection with the negative influence of the road, we should expect changes to the distribution pattern and numbers of birds in the zone directly exposed to such an influence. Moreover, we assessed the influence of traffic noise in the vicinity of the road for habitat utilisation by birds from different feeding guilds (insectivores or granivores). We expected that uneven food resources in the vicinity of the road, human disturbance and anthropogenic food might be reasons for the different locations of the various groups of birds in relation to the road.
Section snippets
Study area
The field work was conducted in the Janów Forest in south-eastern Poland (N50°41′-27′ E22°17′; Fig. 1). This extensive, closed-canopy forest complex lies on flat terrain, but there are dune hillocks in places. The habitats are mostly coniferous woodland, but alder woods grow in the depressions and river valleys. The principal tree species is scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), and to a lesser extent silver birch (Betula pendula), oak (Quercus sp.), spruce (Picea abies) and fir (Abies alba). The
Results
During the three counts a total of 648 individual birds belonging to 25 species (Table 1) were recorded. The most numerous species was goldcrest Regulus regulus, which made up 29% of the birds counted in the study area. Seven other species dominated the study site: great tit (Parus major), Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius), great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major), siskin (Carduelis spinus), crested tit (Lophophanes cristatus), coal tit (Periparus ater) and mistle thrush (Turdus viscivorus
Discussion
Our study showed that the number of birds and species diversity were lower in the vicinity of the road. We observed that some species clearly avoided the “danger zone” in roadside habitats. This is in agreement with the “phantom road” experiment carried out in the autumn (McClure et al., 2013). The results of our study, performed under natural conditions near a quite heavily trafficked road, and those of the “phantom road” experiment, yielded very similar results. We found that nearly one
Conclusions
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first non-experimental fieldwork carried out at stopover sites during the autumn period in the context of the impact of traffic noise on woodland birds. Our observations have shown that roads carrying heavy traffic can modify the distribution and species diversity of woodland birds during the autumn to a significant extent. This study indicates that noise levels above 49 dB significantly influence the number of birds and species diversity in the study
Acknowledgments
We are deeply grateful to three anonymous reviewers for useful comments. Peter Senn reviewed the English version of this paper.
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