Consistent traffic noise impacts few fitness-related traits in a field cricket

Anthropogenic habitat change is occurring rapidly, and organisms can
respond through within-generation responses that improve the match between
their phenotype and the novel conditions they encounter. But, plastic
responses can be adaptive or maladaptive and are most likely to be
adaptive only when contemporary conditions reasonably mimic something
experienced historically to which a response has already evolved. Noise
pollution is a ubiquitous anthropogenic stressor that accompanies
expanding urbanization. We tested whether the amplitude of traffic noise
influences a suite of fitness-related traits (e.g. survival, life history,
reproductive investment, immunity) and whether that depends on the life
stage at which the noise is experienced (juvenile or adult). Our
treatments mimic the conditions experienced by animals living in urban
roadside environments with variable vehicle types, but continuous movement
of traffic. We used the Pacific field cricket, an acoustically
communicating insect that was previously shown to experience some negative
behavioral and life history responses to very loud, variable traffic
noise, as a model system.