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      Bird song and anthropogenic noise: vocal constraints may explain why birds sing higher-frequency songs in cities.

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          Abstract

          When animals live in cities, they have to adjust their behaviour and life histories to novel environments. Noise pollution puts a severe constraint on vocal communication by interfering with the detection of acoustic signals. Recent studies show that city birds sing higher-frequency songs than their conspecifics in non-urban habitats. This has been interpreted as an adaptation to counteract masking by traffic noise. However, this notion is debated, for the observed frequency shifts seem to be less efficient at mitigating noise than singing louder, and it has been suggested that city birds might use particularly high-frequency song elements because they can be produced at higher amplitudes. Here, we present the first phonetogram for a songbird, which shows that frequency and amplitude are strongly positively correlated in the common blackbird (Turdus merula), a successful urban colonizer. Moreover, city blackbirds preferentially sang higher-frequency elements that can be produced at higher intensities and, at the same time, happen to be less masked in low-frequency traffic noise.

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          Most cited references60

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          Ecological Sources of Selection on Avian Sounds

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            Acoustic Communication in Noise

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              The impact of environmental noise on song amplitude in a territorial bird

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Proc. Biol. Sci.
                Proceedings. Biological sciences
                The Royal Society
                1471-2954
                0962-8452
                Mar 07 2013
                : 280
                : 1754
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Communication and Social Behaviour Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 82319 Seewiesen, Germany. enemeth@orn.mpg.de
                Article
                rspb.2012.2798
                10.1098/rspb.2012.2798
                3574330
                23303546
                01bd3870-3435-4351-88d4-7fcdac136951
                History

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