Communication and Social Behaviour Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Eberhard-Gwinner-Straße, Seewiesen 82319, Germany.
Proc Biol Sci. 2022 Sep 14;289(1982):20220906. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0906.
The impacts of noise pollution on birdsong have been extensively investigated but potential long-term effects are neglected. Near airports, where noise levels are particularly high, birds start singing earlier in the morning, probably to gain more time of uninterrupted singing before air traffic sets in. In a previous study, we documented this phenomenon in the vicinity of Berlin Tegel airport. In 2020, Tegel airport closed down, giving us the opportunity to investigate potential long-term effects after noise removal and to gain insight into the mechanisms underlying the advancement of dawn singing. We found that several species at the airport shifted their song onset back after the closure and now had similar schedules to their conspecifics at a control site. Some species, however, still sang earlier near the closed airport. While the first suggests plastic adaptation, the latter suggests selection for early singing males in areas with long-lasting noise pollution. Our findings indicate that a uniform behavioural response to anthropogenic change in a community can be based on diverging evolutionary mechanisms. Overall, we show that noise pollution can have long-lasting effects on animal behaviour and noise removal may not lead to immediate recovery in some species.
噪声污染对鸟鸣的影响已经得到了广泛的研究，但潜在的长期影响却被忽视了。在机场附近，噪声水平特别高，鸟类会在清晨更早地开始歌唱，可能是为了在航空交通开始之前争取更多不间断歌唱的时间。在之前的一项研究中，我们在柏林泰格尔机场附近记录了这一现象。2020 年，泰格尔机场关闭，这为我们提供了研究噪声消除后的潜在长期影响以及深入了解黎明歌唱提前的机制的机会。我们发现，机场附近的几个物种在关闭后，鸣唱开始时间向后推移，现在与控制地点的同种鸟类的时间表相似。然而，有些物种在关闭的机场附近仍然更早地歌唱。虽然第一种情况表明了适应性可塑性，而后者则表明在长期受噪声污染的地区，对早期歌唱的雄性的选择。我们的研究结果表明，一个群落对人为变化的统一行为反应可能基于不同的进化机制。总的来说，我们表明，噪声污染会对动物的行为产生持久的影响，而在某些物种中，噪声消除可能不会立即恢复。
