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Avian Vocal Production in Noise

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Animal Communication and Noise

Part of the book series: Animal Signals and Communication ((ANISIGCOM,volume 2))

Abstract

Birds use acoustic signals to mediate a number of crucial social interactions such as territorial defence, mate attraction and predator avoidance. Thus, differences in signalling efficiency are likely to have major fitness consequences. Acoustic signal transmission is considerably constrained by noise, e.g. sounds in the environment that interfere with the detection, discrimination or recognition of a signal. In this chapter, we discuss noise sources encountered by birds, and the diverse ways birds use to make their signals heard in this noisy world. One concept of signal evolution suggests that bird vocalisations undergo microevolutionary adaptations over time that tailor their sounds to the specific noise profiles of their species-typical habitats. On the individual level, birds across many different taxa also possess the vocal plasticity to make short-term adjustments to their signals to reduce masking in response to changing environmental noise conditions. Such adjustments can take different forms in different species. However, the widespread problem of acoustic communication in noise has also led to the evolution of one shared solution in birds: the Lombard effect, i.e. a noise-dependent regulation of vocal amplitude. In addition, birds may also change the frequency, the duration, the timing, and/or the redundancy of their vocal signals in noise, although in many cases it is not yet clear whether these additional changes are achieved through ontogenetic plasticity or through short-term regulation. In recent years, there has been a flurry of new studies reporting correlations between increased levels of anthropogenic noise and a variety of changes in the vocal behaviour of birds. While many of these studies have focused on increases in song or call frequency in birds exposed to high levels of traffic noise, it is not yet known whether these differences in vocal pitch are actually adaptive. We encourage future research studies to take a more rigorous and integrative approach to the study of vocal signalling in noise. Finally, we note the need for more research on the impact of noise on the evolution and usage of multi-component signals that combine vocal and visual signals.

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Acknowledgments

We dedicate this review to our late friend and colleague Björn Siemers. Intially, Björn planned to write a chapter on the effects of noise on bat vocalisations for this volume, but then he had to cancel because he did not have the time to work on the manuscript. He did not know then that he did not have much time at all.

We are indebted to Tang Jun from China Bird Tours (www.chinabirdtour.com), Michelle and Peter Wong, Volker Deecke, and Stefan Greif for very generously allowing us to use their photographs in Fig. 7.3. Many thanks to Alejandro Ríos-Chelén and his co-authors for calculating the individual values for the many song parameters from many South American urban bird species in their data set, and for allowing us to publish those data in our table. Finally, we are grateful to Peter Slater for his thoughtful comments, which greatly improved this manuscript. Parts of this chapter are inspired by our own field and laboratory studies (as well as a foray into signal transmission modelling, which was strongly influenced by the work of Bob Dooling), and we thank the BBSRC, the DFG, and the MPG for supporting those research efforts.

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  1. Communication and Social Behaviour Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany

    Henrik Brumm & Sue Anne Zollinger

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  1. Henrik Brumm
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  2. Sue Anne Zollinger
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Correspondence to Henrik Brumm .

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  1. Communication and Social Behaviour Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany

    Henrik Brumm

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Brumm, H., Zollinger, S. (2013). Avian Vocal Production in Noise. In: Brumm, H. (eds) Animal Communication and Noise. Animal Signals and Communication, vol 2. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41494-7_7

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