Journal article
Silvereyes decrease acoustic frequency but increase efficacy of alarm calls in urban noise
DA Potvin, RA Mulder, KM Parris
Animal Behaviour | ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD | Published : 2014
Abstract
Many passerines adjust song attributes to avoid potential masking by anthropogenic noise. The costs of masking should be particularly high for vocalizations important for survival (e.g. alarm calls), but few studies have investigated how such calls are affected. We compared urban and rural silvereye, Zosterops lateralis, alarm calls across southeastern Australia, and found that urban calls had lower average, peak and maximum frequencies than rural calls. The average, peak and maximum frequency of alarm calls also decreased linearly with increasing background noise. The direction of this frequency shift runs contrary to expectations and previous findings of higher-pitched avian vocal signals ..
View full abstractRelated Projects (1)
Grants
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank J. Kruckel for field assistance, G. Fry, A. Leishman, G. Clancy, A. Tarrant, D. Paton, D. Williams, E. Woehler, R. Fuller and A. Fletcher for assistance in locating/banding birds, and Australian National Botanic Gardens (ACT), Namadgi National Park (ACT), Glenorchy City Council ( Tas), Brisbane City Council (Qld), Susan Island Trust (NSW), Munghorn Gap Nature Reserve (NSW), Camden Airport (NSW), Kogarah City Council (NSW), Darebin City Council (Vic) and Darebin Parklands Association (Vic) for permission to conduct work on their lands. We also thank M. McCarthy for help with data analysis. This research was funded by a Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment, Birds Tasmania and the National Environmental Research Program, Environmental Decisions Hub.