Motorboat noise impacts parental behaviour and offspring survival in a reef fish

Anthropogenic noise is a pollutant of international concern, with mounting evidence of disturbance and impacts on animal behaviour and physiology. However, empirical studies measuring survival consequences are rare. We use a field experiment to investigate how repeated motorboat-noise playback affects parental behaviour and offspring survival in the spiny chromis ( Acanthochromis polyacanthus ), a brooding coral reef fish. Repeated observations were made for 12 days at 38 natural nests with broods of young. Exposure to motorboat-noise playback compared to ambient-sound playback increased defensive acts, and reduced both feeding and offspring interactions by brood-guarding males. Anthropogenic noise did not affect the growth of developing offspring, but reduced the likelihood of offspring survival; while offspring survived at all 19 nests exposed to ambient-sound playback, six of the 19 nests exposed to motorboat-noise playback suffered complete brood mortality. Our study, providing field-based experimental evidence of the consequences of anthropogenic noise, suggests potential fitness consequences of this global pollutant.

Download Full-text

Intrapopulation variation in the behavioral responses of dwarf mongooses to anthropogenic noise

Behavioral Ecology ◽

10.1093/beheco/araa011 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 31 (3) ◽

pp. 680-691 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Emma Eastcott ◽

Julie M Kern ◽

Amy Morris-Drake ◽

Andrew N Radford

Keyword(s):

Traffic Noise ◽

Anthropogenic Noise ◽

Dominance Status ◽

Substantial Evidence ◽

Intrapopulation Variation ◽

Age Class ◽

Ambient Sound ◽

Global Pollutant ◽

Response Variation ◽

Future Work

Abstract Anthropogenic noise is an increasingly widespread pollutant, with a rapidly burgeoning literature demonstrating impacts on humans and other animals. However, most studies have simply considered if there is an effect of noise, examining the overall cohort response. Although substantial evidence exists for intraspecific variation in responses to other anthropogenic disturbances, this possibility has received relatively little experimental attention with respect to noise. Here, we used field-based playbacks with dwarf mongooses (Helogale parvula) to test how traffic noise affects vigilance behavior and to examine potential variation between individuals of different age class, sex, and dominance status. Foragers exhibited a stronger immediate reaction and increased their subsequent vigilance (both that on the ground and as a sentinel) in response to traffic-noise playback compared with ambient-sound playback. Traffic-noise playback also resulted in sentinels conducting longer bouts and being more likely to change post height or location than in ambient-sound playback. Moreover, there was evidence of variation in noise responses with respect to age class and dominance status but not sex. In traffic noise, foraging pups were more likely to flee and were slower to resume foraging than adults; they also tended to increase their vigilance more than adults. Dominants were more likely than subordinates to move post during sentinel bouts conducted in traffic-noise trials. Our findings suggest that the vigilance–foraging trade-off is affected by traffic noise but that individuals differ in how they respond. Future work should, therefore, consider intrapopulation response variation to understand fully the population-wide effects of this global pollutant.

Download Full-text

Impacts of additional noise on the social interactions of a cooperatively breeding fish

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.210982 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (7) ◽

pp. 210982

Author(s):

Ines Braga Goncalves ◽

Emily Richmond ◽

Harry R. Harding ◽

Andrew N. Radford

Keyword(s):

Social Interactions ◽

Experimental Testing ◽

Anthropogenic Noise ◽

Dominant Male ◽

The Social ◽

Additional Noise ◽

Cooperatively Breeding ◽

Global Pollutant ◽

Model Fish Species ◽

Model Fish

Anthropogenic noise is a global pollutant known to affect the behaviour of individual animals in all taxa studied. However, there has been relatively little experimental testing of the effects of additional noise on social interactions between conspecifics, despite these forming a crucial aspect of daily life for most species. Here, we use established paradigms to investigate how white-noise playback affects both group defensive actions against an intruder and associated within-group behaviours in a model fish species, the cooperatively breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher . Additional noise did not alter defensive behaviour, but did result in changes to within-group behaviour. Both dominant and subordinate females, but not the dominant male, exhibited less affiliation and showed a tendency to produce more submissive displays to groupmates when there was additional noise compared with control conditions. Thus, our experimental results indicate the potential for anthropogenic noise to affect social interactions between conspecifics and emphasize the possibility of intraspecific variation in the impacts of this global pollutant.

Download Full-text

The effect of sexual selection on adaptation and extinction under increasing temperatures

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2018.0303 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 285 (1877) ◽

pp. 20180303 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Jonathan M. Parrett ◽

Robert J. Knell

Keyword(s):

Sexual Selection ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Population Level ◽

Offspring Survival ◽

Positive Effects ◽

Fitness Consequences ◽

Indian Meal ◽

Mating Opportunities ◽

Entire Experiment ◽

Positive Effect

Strong sexual selection has been reported to both enhance and hinder the adaptive capacity and persistence of populations when exposed to novel environments. Consequently, how sexual selection influences population adaption and persistence under stress remains widely debated. Here, we present two empirical investigations of the fitness consequences of sexual selection on populations of the Indian meal moth, Plodia interpunctella, exposed to stable or gradually increasing temperatures. When faced with increasing temperatures, strong sexual selection was associated with both increased fecundity and offspring survival compared with populations experiencing weak sexual selection, suggesting sexual selection acts to drive adaptive evolution by favouring beneficial alleles. Strong sexual selection did not, however, delay extinction when the temperature became excessively high. By manipulating individuals' mating opportunities during fitness assays, we were able to assess the effect of multiple mating independently from the effect of population-level sexual selection, and found that polyandry has a positive effect on both fecundity and offspring survival under increasing temperatures in those populations evolving with weak sexual selection. Within stable temperatures, there were some benefits from strong sexual selection but these were not consistent across the entire experiment, possibly reflecting changing costs and benefits of sexual selection under stabilizing and directional selection. These results indicate that sexual selection can provide a buffer against climate change and increase adaptation rates within a continuously changing environment. These positive effects of sexual selection may, however, be too small to protect populations and delay extinction when environmental changes are relatively rapid.

Download Full-text

Gone girl: Richardson's ground squirrel offspring and neighbours are resilient to female removal

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.190904 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (9) ◽

pp. 190904 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Angela R. Freeman ◽

Thomas J. Wood ◽

Kevin R. Bairos-Novak ◽

W. Gary Anderson ◽

James F. Hare

Keyword(s):

Reproductive Success ◽

Ground Squirrels ◽

Offspring Survival ◽

Alarm Calling ◽

Territory Defence ◽

Faecal Glucocorticoid Metabolites ◽

Fitness Consequences ◽

High Predation ◽

Pituitary Adrenal Axis ◽

Urocitellus Richardsonii

Within matrilineal societies, the presence of mothers and female kin can greatly enhance survival and reproductive success owing to kin-biased alarm calling, cooperation in territory defence, protection from infanticidal conspecifics, joint care of young and enhanced access to resources. The removal of mothers by predators or disease is expected to increase the stress experienced by offspring via activation of their hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, increasing circulating glucocorticoids and reducing offspring survival and reproductive success. Yet, few studies have removed mothers in the post-weaning period to examine the assumed physiological and fitness consequences associated with these mortality events. We examined how the loss of a mother affects juvenile Richardson's ground squirrels' ( Urocitellus richardsonii ) faecal glucocorticoid metabolites and their survival. Given that neighbours are often close kin, we further hypothesized that conspecific removal would similarly diminish the fitness of neighbouring individuals. Upon removing the mother, we detected no impact on offspring or neighbouring conspecific faecal glucocorticoid metabolites in the removal year, or on overwinter survival in the following year. Furthermore, no impact on neighbour reproductive success was detected. Given the high predation rates of ground squirrels in wild populations, resilience to a changing social environment would prove adaptive for both surviving kin and non-kin.

Download Full-text

Maternal condition and previous reproduction interact to affect offspring sex in a wild mammal

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2016.0510 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 12 (8) ◽

pp. 20160510 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Mathieu Douhard ◽

Marco Festa-Bianchet ◽

Fanie Pelletier

Keyword(s):

Sex Ratio ◽

Empirical Studies ◽

Good Condition ◽

Ovis Canadensis ◽

Maternal Condition ◽

Paternal Effects ◽

Offspring Sex Ratio ◽

Fitness Consequences ◽

Offspring Sex ◽

Dimorphic Species

Trivers and Willard proposed that offspring sex ratio should vary with maternal condition when condition, meant as maternal capacity to care, has different fitness consequences for sons and daughters. In polygynous and dimorphic species, mothers in good condition should preferentially produce sons, whereas mothers in poor condition should produce more daughters. Despite its logical appeal, support for this hypothesis has been inconsistent. Sex-ratio variation may be influenced by additional factors, such as environmental conditions and previous reproduction, which are often ignored in empirical studies. We analysed 39 years of data on bighorn sheep ( Ovis canadensis ) that fit all the assumptions of the Trivers–Willard hypothesis. Production of sons increased with maternal condition only for mothers that weaned a son the previous year. This relationship likely reflects a mother's ability to bear the higher reproductive costs of sons. The interaction between maternal condition and previous weaning success on the probability of producing a son was independent of the positive effect of paternal reproductive success. Maternal and paternal effects accounted for similar proportions of the variance in offspring sex. Maternal reproductive history should be considered in addition to current condition in studies of sex allocation.

Download Full-text

Species sensitivities to a global pollutant: A meta‐analysis on acoustic signals in response to anthropogenic noise

Global Change Biology ◽

10.1111/gcb.15428 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 27 (3) ◽

pp. 675-688

Author(s):

Hansjoerg P. Kunc ◽

Rouven Schmidt

Keyword(s):

Meta Analysis ◽

Acoustic Signals ◽

Anthropogenic Noise ◽

Global Pollutant

Download Full-text

Fitness consequences of habitat variability, trophic position, and energy allocation across the depth distribution of a coral-reef fish

Coral Reefs ◽

10.1007/s00338-017-1587-4 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 36 (3) ◽

pp. 957-968 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

E. D. Goldstein ◽

E. K. D’Alessandro ◽

S. Sponaugle

Keyword(s):

Coral Reef ◽

Reef Fish ◽

Coral Reef Fish ◽

Depth Distribution ◽

Trophic Position ◽

Energy Allocation ◽

Habitat Variability ◽

Fitness Consequences

Download Full-text

AMBIENT SOUND AS A NAVIGATIONAL CUE FOR LARVAL REEF FISH

Bioacoustics ◽

10.1080/09524622.2002.9753700 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 12 (2-3) ◽

pp. 214-217 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

NICHOLAS TOLIMIERI ◽

OLIVIA HAINE ◽

JOHN C. MONTGOMERY ◽

ANDREW JEFFS

Keyword(s):

Reef Fish ◽

Ambient Sound

Download Full-text

Freshwater soundscapes: a cacophony of undescribed biological sounds now threatened by anthropogenic noise

10.1101/740183 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Rodney A. Rountree ◽

Francis Juanes ◽

Marta Bolgan

Keyword(s):

Geographic Area ◽

Freshwater Ecosystems ◽

Tidal River ◽

Anthropogenic Noise ◽

Sound Sources ◽

Air Movement ◽

Sound Levels ◽

Fish Sounds ◽

Ambient Sound ◽

Freshwater Habitats

AbstractThe soundscape composition of freshwater habitats is poorly understood. Our goal was to document the occurrence of biological sounds in a large variety of freshwater habitats over a large geographic area. The underwater soundscape was sampled in freshwater habitat categorized as brook/creek, pond/lake, or river, from five major river systems in North America (Connecticut, Kennebec, Merrimack, Presumpscot, and Saco) over a five-week period in the spring of 2008. Over 7,000 sounds were measured from 2,750 minutes of recording in 173 locations, and classified into major anthropophony (airplane, boat, traffic, train and other noise) and biophony (fish air movement, also known as air passage, other fish, insect-like, bird, and other biological) sound categories. Anthropogenic noise dominated the soundscape of all habitats averaging 15 % of time per recording compared to less than 2 % for biological sounds. Anthropophony occurred in 79 % of recordings and was mainly due to traffic and boat sounds, which exhibited significant differences among habitats and between non-tidal and tidal river regions. Most biophonic sounds were from unidentified insect-like, air movement fish, and other fish sound sources that occurred in 57 % of recordings. Mean frequencies of anthropogenic noises overlapped strongly with the biophony, and comparisons of spectra suggest that insect- like and air movement sounds may be more susceptible to masking than other fish sounds. There was a significant decline in biodiversity and biophony with increasing ambient sound levels. Our poor understanding of the biophony of freshwater ecosystems, together with an apparent high temporal exposure to anthropogenic noise across all habitats, suggest a critical need for studies aimed at identification of biophonic sound sources and assessment of potential threats from anthropogenic noises.

Download Full-text