Data from: Vocal traits and diet explain avian sensitivities to anthropogenic noise

Global population growth has caused extensive human-induced environmental change, including a near-ubiquitous transformation of the acoustical environment due to the propagation of anthropogenic noise. Because the acoustical environment is a critical ecological dimension for countless species to obtain, interpret and respond to environmental cues, highly novel environmental acoustics have the potential to negatively impact organisms that use acoustics for a variety of functions, such as communication and predator/prey detection. Using a comparative approach with 308 populations of 183 bird species from 14 locations in Europe, North American and the Caribbean, I sought to reveal the intrinsic and extrinsic factors responsible for avian sensitivities to anthropogenic noise as measured by their habitat use in noisy versus adjacent quiet locations. Birds across all locations tended to avoid noisy areas, but trait-specific differences emerged. Vocal frequency, diet and foraging location predicted patterns of habitat use in response to anthropogenic noise, but body size, nest placement and type, other vocal features and the type of anthropogenic noise (chronic industrial vs. intermittent urban/traffic noise) failed to explain variation in habitat use. Strongly supported models also indicated the relationship between sensitivity to noise and predictive traits had little to no phylogenetic structure. In general, traits associated with hearing were strong predictors – species with low-frequency vocalizations, which experience greater spectral overlap with low-frequency anthropogenic noise tend to avoid noisy areas, whereas species with higher frequency vocalizations respond less severely. Additionally, omnivorous species and those with animal-based diets were more sensitive to noise than birds with plant-based diets, likely because noise may interfere with the use of audition in multimodal prey detection. Collectively, these results suggest that anthropogenic noise is a powerful sensory pollutant that can filter avian communities nonrandomly by interfering with birds' abilities to receive, respond to and dispatch acoustic cues and signals.

全球人口增长引发了广泛的人为环境变化，其中因人为噪声(anthropogenic noise)传播导致的声环境(acoustical environment)异化已近乎遍及全球。声环境是无数物种获取、解读并响应环境线索的关键生态维度，因此全新的人工声环境可能对依赖声学完成交流、捕食/反捕食探测等多种功能的生物产生负面影响。
本研究采用比较研究方法，分析了欧洲、北美及加勒比地区14处采样点的183种鸟类共计308个种群，通过对比鸟类在噪声区域与邻近安静区域的栖息地利用情况，旨在揭示影响鸟类对人为噪声敏感性的内在与外在因素。
所有采样点的鸟类均倾向于避开噪声区域，但不同功能性状的鸟类表现出特异性差异。鸣唱频率、食性与觅食位置可预测鸟类对人为噪声的栖息地利用模式，但体型大小、巢位与巢型、其他鸣唱特征以及人为噪声类型（长期工业噪声与间歇性城市/交通噪声）均无法解释栖息地利用的差异。
得到强力支持的模型还显示，噪声敏感性与预测性状之间的关联几乎不存在系统发育结构(phylogenetic structure)。
总体而言，与听觉相关的性状是强有力的预测因子：鸣唱频率较低的鸟类，其鸣声频谱与低频人为噪声的重叠程度更高，因此更倾向于避开噪声区域；而鸣唱频率较高的鸟类受噪声影响则相对较轻。
此外，杂食性及以动物为食的鸟类对噪声的敏感性高于植食性鸟类，这可能是因为噪声会干扰鸟类在多模态猎物探测过程中对听觉信号的使用。
综合来看，上述结果表明人为噪声是一种强效的感官污染物，可通过干扰鸟类接收、响应与传递声学线索与信号的能力，非随机地筛选鸟类群落。