Authors:

Jabez Soongeui Shin

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About Paper:

Urbanization is a major cause of landscape transformation worldwide and exposes organisms to novel sensory pollutants. Artificial light at night (ALAN) and traffic noise are persistent threats to animals that rely on acoustic communication at night, interfering with the detection and perception of sexual signals. Ultimately, ALAN and traffic noise can negatively affect the mating behavior and reproduction across taxa. Studies have investigated these sensory pollutants independently, but their combined effects are unclear even though they often occur simultaneously. Here, we studied the independent and combined effects of ALAN and traffic noise on anurans, a nocturnal group that relies on acoustic signals for reproduction. We examined how these sensory pollutants affect the activity patterns in mixed-species aggregations and individual male calling behavior. To do so, we broadcast ALAN, traffic noise, or both combined at choruses and individual males while recording their calls before-, during, and post-exposure. Both sensory pollutants independently alter the number of individuals calling per species, resulting in fewer species calling in choruses. When combined, ALAN and traffic noise seem to have a stronger effect. Male Gray treefrogs seem to alter their call properties in the presence of ALAN and traffic noise independently and combined. While both pollutants affect calling behavior, ALAN may have a longer-lasting impact on frog choruses and individuals. Our work generally reveals changes in calling behavior and chorus structure elicited by ALAN and traffic noise. These effects of combined sensory pollutants need further investigation to understand and predict their impacts on biodiversity. Keywords: Sensory Pollutants; Mating Behavior and Reproduction; Mixed-Species Aggregations; Choruses; Anurans

Source:

Purdue University / 2024

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Jabez Soongeui Shin