Authors:

Isabella Wyatt

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About Paper:

For communication to take place, signals should be transmitted from the sender to the receiver. Several environmental factors, such as relative openness, vegetation type, and temperature, among others, affect how far an acoustic signal travels. Urbanization alters both the physical and acoustic structure of signaling environments, potentially affecting the transmission of acoustic signals and therefore, their active space. However, our understanding of how urbanization affects transmission of acoustic signals is limited. Here, we investigate signal transmission in rural vs noise-polluted urban environments in frogs, a group of high conservation concern that relies on acoustic signaling for reproduction. In particular, we performed transmission experiments by broadcasting calls of four native species (Dryopytes versicolor, Acris blanchardi, Lithobates catesbeiana, L. clamitans) at urban and rural breeding sites in the Greater Lafayette area. To examine acoustic degradation of the calls and differential changes in signal:noise ratio, we recorded these playbacks at five distances (1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 m) in the presence and absence of pre-recorded traffic noise. Excess attenuation was determined by measuring call intensity at those distances. Signal degradation and excess attenuation analyses evaluating frogs calling at urban and rural breeding areas provide valuable insights into the effects of urbanization on anuran call transmission. Overall, our study aids in broadening our understanding of the challenges confronted by organisms living in rapidly changing environments, providing insights into previously unconsidered factors that may play a role in declining amphibian populations. Keywords: Bioacoustics; Signal Transmission; Urbanization; Anthropogenic Noise; Frogs

Source:

Purdue University / 2024

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Isabella Wyatt