School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QG, UK.
Vincent Wildlife Trust, Bronsil Courtyard, Eastnor, Ledbury, Herefordshire, HR8 1EP, UK.
Environ Pollut. 2020 Aug;263(Pt B):114405. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2020.114405. Epub 2020 Apr 2.
Increasing levels of road noise are creating new anthropogenic soundscapes that may affect wildlife globally. Bats, which form about a third of all mammal species, are sensitive bioindicators, and may be particularly vulnerable because of their dependency on echolocation. Here we present the first controlled field experiment with free-living bats. Using a Before-After-Control-Impact phantom road experimental design, we examine the impacts of traffic noise on their activity and feeding behaviour. Disentangling the impacts of traffic noise from other co-varying exposures such as habitat quality, the experiment demonstrates a significant negative effect on the activity of each of the five, ecologically different, species (genus for Myotis spp.) examined. This suggests that the results are widely applicable. The negative effects are largely attributable to noise in the sonic spectrum, which elicited aversive responses in all bat species tested,whereas responses to ultrasoundwere restricted to a single species. Our findings demonstrate that traffic noise can affect bat activity at least 20m away from the noise source. For Pipistrellus pipistrellus and Pipistrellus pygmaeus, feeding behaviour, as well as overall activity, was negatively affected. Ecological Impact Assessments are therfore needed wherever there are significant increases in traffic flow, and not just when new roads are built. Further research is required to identify effective mitigation strategies, to delineate the zone of influence of road noise, and to assess whether there is any habituation over time.
道路噪音水平的不断升高正在形成新的人为声景，这可能会影响全球的野生动物。蝙蝠约占所有哺乳动物物种的三分之一，是敏感的生物指标，由于它们对回声定位的依赖，可能特别容易受到影响。在这里，我们首次进行了自由生活蝙蝠的对照现场实验。使用前-后-对照-影响（phantom road）实验设计，我们研究了交通噪音对其活动和觅食行为的影响。通过将交通噪音的影响与其他共变因素（如栖息地质量）区分开来，该实验表明，交通噪音对所研究的五种生态不同的蝙蝠物种（Myotis spp.属）的活动都有显著的负面影响。这表明结果具有广泛的适用性。这些负面影响主要归因于声谱中的噪音，所有测试的蝙蝠物种都对其产生了厌恶反应，而对超声波的反应则仅限于一种物种。我们的研究结果表明，交通噪音可以在距噪音源至少 20 米的地方影响蝙蝠的活动。对于 Pipistrellus pipistrellus 和 Pipistrellus pygmaeus，觅食行为以及整体活动都受到负面影响。因此，在交通流量显著增加的地方，都需要进行生态影响评估，而不仅仅是在新建道路时。需要进一步研究以确定有效的缓解策略，划定道路噪音的影响范围，并评估随着时间的推移是否存在任何习惯化现象。
