Noise pollution is a problem faced by animals in urban habitats , and the change in time could lead to increased energy costs and competition between species.
Researchers from the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC) have discovered that birds that live near airports wake up earlier to reduce the time during which their song is muffled by aircraft noise . The study shows that being flexible to change behavior allows bird populations to survive in very noisy areas.
Day-to-day life in cities causes changes in the behavior of urban animals . Birds have learned to take advantage of the urban environment, such as the large amount of food available in landfills. They have also developed strategies to mitigate disadvantages , such as raising the pitch of their singing to communicate despite the noise. However, in some areas, such as those around airports, the noise is so intense that the birds cannot do anything to hear each other.
MNCN researchers have detected how birds that live near a large airport advance their morning songs to try to avoid the hours of peak air traffic. Thus, they use the song of dawn to defend their territories and attract females. In this way, they manage to reduce the time during which their song overlaps with the noise produced by airplanes. “This behavior forces them to change the ideal hours to sing, which could mean an increase in energy costs and increase competitiveness between species,” explains Diego Gil, a researcher at the MNCN.
The researchers detected this behavior at the Barajas airport, Madrid, studying ten different species of birds that live on the banks of the Jarama. On the other hand, in order to generalize the results, they decided to replicate the study in several airports in Spain and Germany, in which the coincidence between urban noise and waking up of the birds varied due to the change in latitude.
“The results clearly showed how the overlapping of morning songs with the noise of the airplanes was the key factor that caused the change in behavior since, in all the cases studied, the species of birds that advanced their awakening were those whose schedules were they overlapped more with the moments of greater air traffic ”, says Gil. “The study shows that birds have mechanisms to adapt to certain changes caused by man and that there are differences between species to develop this ability,” concludes the researcher.
