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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/25/noise-from-traffic-stunts-growth-of-baby-birds-study-finds>
"Noise pollution from traffic stunts growth in baby birds, even while inside
the egg, research has found.
Unhatched birds and hatchlings that are exposed to noise from city traffic
experience long-term negative effects on their health, growth and reproduction,
the study found.
“Sound has a much stronger and more direct impact on bird development than we
knew before,” said Dr Mylene Mariette, a bird communication expert at Deakin
University in Australia and a co-author of the study, published in the journal
Science. “It would be wise to work more to reduce noise pollution.”
A growing body of research has suggested that noise pollution causes stress to
birds and makes communication harder for them. But whether birds are already
distressed at a young age because they are affected by noise, or by how noise
disrupts their environment and parental care, was still unclear.
Mariette’s team routinely exposed zebra finch eggs for five days to either
silence, soothing playbacks of zebra finch songs, or recordings of city traffic
noises such as revving motors and cars driving past. They did the same with
newborn chicks for about four hours a night for up to 13 nights, without
exposing the birds’ parents to the sounds.
They noticed that the bird eggs were almost 20% less likely to hatch if exposed
to traffic noise. The chicks that did hatch were more than 10% smaller and
almost 15% lighter than the other hatchlings. When the team ran analyses on
their red blood cells and their telomeres – a piece of DNA that shortens with
stress and age – they were more eroded and shorter than their counterparts’.
The effects continued even after the chicks were no longer exposed to noise
pollution, and carried over into their reproductive age four years later. The
birds disturbed by noise during the early stages of their lives produced fewer
than half as many offspring as their counterparts.
“We were expecting some effects, but we didn’t expect them to be so strong,”
said Mariette, especially because the exposure to noise pollution was
relatively mild and for only four hours a day. “It was really quite striking.”
“We generally assume, based on numerous studies, that very young birds,
especially in the egg, have very poor or no sensitivity to sound,” said Robert
Dooling, an animal hearing expert from the University of Maryland in the US,
who was not involved in the study. But “this study raises the spectre of broad,
negative, enduring effects of noise on development”."
This will be another benefit of the coming widespread adoption of EVs, in
addition to the reduction of air pollution.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
