Wednesday, March 24, 2010 @ 6:30pm
Finding mates amongst the noise
Speaker | Glenn Cunnington, Ph. D. student, Carleton University
Finding that special someone can be tough; wandering through the busy nightclubs, trying to get the attention of that person who has caught your eye only to find that you can’t talk to them over the thunder of music. Human activities often result in considerable levels of noise, and not just in busy bars and nightclubs. This ‘noise pollution’ has been found to interfere with animals’ reproductive behaviour. In nature, many species use songs or calls to attract potential mates and the calls of these species can be drowned out by noise pollution, in the same way that your voice is drowned out by loud music. A major source of noise pollution is road traffic. The effects of traffic noise on wildlife could be limited if individuals can change their songs and calls, in much the same way that a person shouts to be heard above loud music. A number of species of birds and amphibians have been found to change their tune when they are exposed to traffic noise, but does it work? I will talk about the effects of traffic noise on the breeding behaviour of local frogs and toads and how they find that special someone amongst all our noise.