Pollution has had a dominating presence on this planet for quite some time. Noise is considered pollution if it affects everyday actions. These unwanted sounds are seen to be no more than a mere distraction by most, but contrary to popular belief, noise pollution is directly linked to health. Increased levels of noise is known to cause high blood pressure, hearing loss, and sleep disruption which then leads to more negative effects on the body ("Noise Pollution", 2016). Not only does loud, excessive noise affects humans, but it also carries a drastic measure on the health of wildlife by affecting their mating calls and other communicational calls (Radle, 2007). Deforestation, oil industries, and construction industries play a key role on the psychological and physical health of most wildlife because it creates unnecessary levels of sound pollution. Bernard Krause conducted research on acoustic ecology affecting wildlife in marine and land systems. The increase of noise pollution is having a negative effect on the communicational patterns of birds (Lengagne, et. al., 1999). Each animal possesses an aural niche which refers to the vocalizations made by individual organisms that are used in its particular environment in terms of pitch, frequency, and different characteristics of acoustics (Krause, 1993). This niche was seen to shift in birds, as well as other animals affected, as more noise pollution was introduced into the environment.
Just like how pollution had an impact on bird communicational patterns, it has also had a major impact on other animals. Humpback Whales have experienced an increase in noise pollution due to increases in the human population on coastal areas near where the whales live. This has resulted in increased boat traffic and oil drilling which causes large amounts of noise pollution, and can interfere with the communication of Humpback Whales (Rossi-Santos, et. al., 2015). It was shown that the Humpback whales experience less reproductive success near sources of high noise pollution (Rossi-Santos, et. al, 2015). As noise pollution continues to rise, different animals have developed their own ways of coping with the problem. One particularly obvious way; repetition and increased length of the call is exemplified in the calls of King Penguins and Killer Whales. Following a period of increased boat traffic, it was found that Killer Whales increase the length of their song to battle noise pollution interference (Foote, et. al., 2004). Similar results were found in King Penguin communications. While King Penguins live in fairly uninhabited areas, they still experience noise pollution in the form of other penguin calls as well as wind noise (Lengagne, et. al., 1999). In windy conditions, King Penguins were found to increase both the number of calls, as well as the number of syllables per call (Lengagne, et. al., 1999). While fairly obvious, the repetition of calls has shown to be an effective way for many organisms to communicate in high levels of noise pollution. Because noise pollution was found to be affecting two very different animals in similar ways, this behavior is shown to be instinctive throughout all species.
Although repetition of calls is a very effective way for organisms to communicate, it is very easy for information to get disrupted from noise pollution (Lengagne, et. al., 1999). An example of this is when the sound a bird makes gets drowned out by other noises in the environment and the intended receiver does not receive the correct information. This could potentially lead to the birds having fewer mating opportunities because, without communicating, attracting a mate would be difficult (Luther, et. al 2016). A study was conducted, testing how birds accounted for the traffic noise from a busy highway. As expected, it was recorded that majority of the birds migrated further away to sustain good communication, but there were few that remained and adapted (Rheindt, 2003). These birds changed the pitch of their calls and their sensitivity to the increased sound changed (Rheindt, 2003). As one way to lessen the amount of errors with vocal communication, each bird sets its own standards for the certain type of vocals they are attracted to so they can select a mate in an easier way (Haven-Wiley 2016). The best way for a bird to get around noise pollution is by increasing the frequency of their calls based on the noise level (Rossi-Santos 2015). With the increase of noise pollution from man-made areas, other animals have been shown to exhibit this trait (Rossi-Santos 2015). An example of this would be humpback whales changing the frequency of their calls because of the noise pollution oil rigs cause in the oceans (Rossi-Santos 2015). Birds must also evolve along with the increase of noise pollution by learning to adjust their frequencies to be able to effectively communicate with one another and attract mates. One of the most important factors of this research is that these behaviors may also be found in organisms with similar brain structures or genetic codes.
It has been shown in recent studies that humans and songbirds share a part of the brain called the Broca's area, located in the left frontal region, that is related to speech (Pfenning, Andreas R. et. al., 2016). This discovery indicated that there are possible correlations between the speech patterns, speech development, and communication of birds and humans. More interestingly, it was found that this same part of the brain has 50 genes associated with its development that are found in both birds and humans (Pfenning, Andreas R. et. al., 2016). One of the genes with that was shown to have a very specific effect on speech repetition was a gene called axon guidance ligand SLITI(Pfenning, Andreas R. et. al., 2016).Because of this correlation, it was hypothesized that certain communicational behaviors found in birds, could potentially be present in humans as well.
Among the many types of birds that are present for observational purposes near Michigan State University, the American goldfinch, or Spinus tristis, has definitely stood out to be the most prevalent in the area to study and observe. The Goldfinch, or Wild canary, is a relatively small bird that is a non-migratory species in the northeastern United States but it is considered migratory in the northern parts of its breeding range, which includes northern parts of Canada (Prescott, 1990). The female goldfinch, for protection purposes, is a more brownish color (MacDougall, 2003). The brownish color allows the bird to blend into its surroundings and defend itself from predators. These birds usually molt twice a year as their color turns from a dull brown in the winter to a brighter yellow close to the beginning of spring (MacDougall, 2003). Goldfinches are very active birds and are found to show agonistic behaviors occurring in connection to territorial and defensive purposes (Prescott, 1990). Their diet includes mainly only milky ripe seeds from composite plants, like sunflowers and thistle (Gluck, 1985). The goldfinch resides year-round in temperate climate and is found mostly in open areas with some trees and bushes(Prescott, 1990). The temperate climate includes cold winters, when the bird is a brownish color, and warm summers, when the bird is a brighter yellow shade. The American goldfinch is a noisy bird and draws attention towards itself with its famous songs and calls. Males' calls are described as being several seconds long as their most famous call is the contact call. These calls are made when they are flying in the air. Their mating call, usually heard in the spring or summer time, is more melodic and the full song is only produced by the males (Coutlee, 2006). The Michigan State campus is an ideal spot to view these small, active birds due to the vast space,trees, and shrubs that reside in it. Because it is a college campus setting, it is populous and therefore, loud, in comparison to other vast fields in the temperate climate zone. As found in previous papers, the patterns of whales and penguins, and even other birds, they all have behavioral similarities when dealing with noise pollution. All the animals stated above either increase their pitch with more noise or repeat calls if the signal seems to not be reaching the clear destination. We hypothesize that American goldfinches will chirp more frequently with increased noise pollution because birds and other animals, like whales and penguins, tend to change their communication with increased levels of noise.
Finalized By: Shwetha Ramchandran
Goldfinches were observed at four separate locations around the Michigan State Campus. The first location was in front of the Brody Hall. The second location was in the botanical gardens near the main library. The third location was Red Cedar River behind Shaw hall. The fourth location was in the Sanford National Area. Only two locations were chosen for human trials. The first was in the Akers Cafeteria, and the second was the botanical garden near the main library. These locations were chosen due to the stark contrast in sound pollution and amount of people who frequent them to see how the varied sound levels affect the number of times goldfinches repeat their calls.
Goldfinches were also observed at different time increments of the day at each location. The different times of day were based on the different positions of the sun: early morning (7:30am-8:30am), noon (12:00pm-1:00pm), and evening (5:30pm-6:30pm), before sunset. These categories do not have an exact time due to the seasonal change that occurs during the experiment (however, exact times were still recorded). Different time increments were chosen due to the variance of the sound intensities on campus at different points in the day. Pedestrians paired with different vehicles' noises vary throughout the day. To get the most accurate and precise data, the chirps of Goldfinches were recorded using a video camcorder and decibel meter at three different times of the day. The human trials only implemented two times of day at the two locations, noon, and night. Similar to the locations, these times showed a stark contrast in noise pollution levels as well as the amount of people present at the time.
Data collections were completed twice for each time increment at each location for a total of 24 data collections. Each data collection lasted 30-60min. A decibel meter was used first to assess the initial amount of noise pollution at the location at that specific time in decibels. It was then left on, and the noise pollution level in decibels was recorded every 5 minutes so that an average noise pollution level for the specific data collection could be found. Any major changes in the amount of noise pollution were also recorded. A high definition camera was used to observe Goldfinches, as well as to record the calls made during the data collection. A computer application called Garageband was applied to count the syllables in each call so that specific calls could be identified and then checked for repetition. Two or three different call patterns were expected to be identified and used for measurements. These call patterns will then be the call patterns used at each data collection for the duration of the experiment. An average noise pollution level was then calculated and used as a baseline sound pollution level.
When comparing the average noise call, in decibles, to the location and time, a standard mean was calculated for each data collection. Error bars were placed at each data point based on the standard mean that was calculated. When comparing the average level of sound pollution with the number of bird call repeptition, while taking into account both time and place, a correlation test was performed and the p-value indicated a significance of the data
Finally, this experiment was repeated with human observations to see if they would react the same way as goldfinches because they share the axon guidance ligand SLIT1. Only two locations were used; Brody cafeteria and Akers cafeteria. Data was collected at these locations at noon (12:00pm-1:00pm) and in the evening (5:30pm-6:30pm) twice each. These locations and times were chosen for the same reason as for the locations and times for the birds; to see how humans would react at varied levels of noise pollution. Human speech is much more complex than bird calls and because of this, rather than look for repetition in call patterns, the researchers counted the number of times humans repeated or were asked to repeat a sentence in conversations at different noise levels. Data collections were only done in the indicated cafeterias and a decibel meter was used to measure the level of noise pollution. For legal reasons, a camera was not used during data collection, rather all four researchers were required to be in the cafeteria at different parts, and the observational data was recorded. To remove any observation bias from the researchers, a sentence repetition was defined as "a part of a conversation in which one or more persons in the conversation indicated that a sentence, word, or phrase was not heard, and caused the sentence, word, or phrase to be repeated."
Finalized by: Yeshkirat Kaur
The data (figure 1) shows a deviation from the original predictions made in that there was not a simple increase of average amounts of bird call repetitions with the increase in average noise pollution levels. The line showed a continuous oscillation of bird call repetitions, consistently rising and then falling, as the level of noise pollution increased. There was a slight decrease in the average number of call repetitions between 50.03-50.21 decibels, and then a sudden increase in call repetitions going from an average of one call repetition to about 21 call repetitions. A similar spike in call repetitions was seen between 51.54-52.15 decibels going from 4 call repetitions to 22 call repetitions, and between 53.32-53.97 decibels going from 12-32 call repetitions. After each spike is a sudden drop, implying that certain sound levels cause birds to increase their call repetitions while others, even if they are higher, could make birds lower the number of call repetitions. The overall trend shows that as the sound level gets higher, the peaks get higher as well, while the dips stop a little higher than the ones before, except for the last drop, which goes lower than the others, to zero call repetitions.
The morning time increment showed the most average bird call repetition, measured in decibels, in relation to average noise pollution. During the morning the average sound level was 52.6 decibels. The repetition peaks were recorded from Garageband and counted. The peaks counted are recorded by a scatter graph (figure 2). From 7:30am-8:30am, it can be seen that there was more bird call repetition on average compared to noon and evening. Morning was followed by the noon time increment with having the most repetitions. The average sound level was 54.01 decibels from 12:00pm-1:00pm. The lowest time increment with the least amount of noise pollution is evening (5:30pm-6:30pm). The average noise pollution level was 51.69 decibels. Two of the time increments had a relative positive trend, morning and noon, and one had a negative slope, evening. The hypothesis was not supported as there was variation from the original predictions. A correlation statistics test was conducted. The p-value, which was 0.198, indicated the test was not significant as it is more than accepted value of 0.05.
The data shown (Figure 3) is comparing the average number of noise pollution in decibels to the different locations and times around Michigan State University. We predicted Brody to have the highest noise pollution and Holmes to have the lowest noise pollution levels. The results were similar to this finding. It was found that Brody noon, between the times of 12 pm-1pm, had the highest level of noise pollution at 57.99 decibels. The next highest level of noise pollution was found at the River Trail location then followed by the Botanical garden as the next loudest. Holmes evening, between the times of 5:30-6:30, was the quietest level of noise pollution at 50.46 decibels. For every location, the evening time had the least amount of noise pollution when compared to the noon and morning times. The range of the sound pollution was from 50.46 decibels to 57.99 decibels with all the other locations and times ranging in between. The standard mean was calculated for each data collection and error bars were placed at each individual points to depict the amount of error possible in our results.
As predicted, humans reacted the same way to noise pollution as the goldfinches as they had also repeated themselves more as the level of noise increased. This was because of the gene shared between the two species; the axon guidance ligand SLIT1 (Pfenning, Andreas R. et. al., 2016). As shown with the trend line (Figure 4), the average amount of times people needed to repeat themselves increased as the average noise level also increased. The amount of repeated speech was highest in Brody cafeteria because of the high level of noise pollution from the population.The highest number of speech repetitions was 17 repetitions at Brody paired with the highest average sound level of 94.1 decibels. The repetitions in Akers were, on average, lower than those recorded in Brody. It had the lowest results of 4 repetitions at an average sound level of 71.9 decibels. For both locations it was found that there were, on average, more repetitions when observing at noon (12:00pm-1:00pm) than in the evening (5:30pm-6:30pm) because there were more people and consequently a higher noise level.
Finalized By: Brandon Luczak
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Finalized By: Omar Said
Figure 1: General Trend of Predicted Relationship of Average Bird Call Repetition to Average Sound Pollution Level. The x-values show the average noise level recorded in decibels. The y-values show the average number of recorded call repetitions. The line shows the relationship between the average number of repeated goldfinch calls and the average noise level in decibels. To test the prediction shown in this trend, a decibel meter was used to measure the level of sound pollution in decibels during a data collection. Then, the Goldfinches were recorded using a high definition camera. The sound recordings from the camera were then analyzed on an application called Garageband. 2-3 calls were identified and any repetitions of these calls were counted. Averages of the readings of the decibel meter were calculated and corresponding bird call repetitions were also averaged.
Figure 2: Average bird call repetition in different times of the day. The relationship between the average number of bird call repetitions and noise pollution levels is represented for three time increments; morning (7:30am-8am), noon (12pm-1pm), and evening (5:30pm-6:30pm). The three time increments are based on the location of the sun. The data was collected using a decibel meter and a video camera. Garageband was used to count the number of peaks of different Goldfinch calls. Specific calls were identified and then the audio recording could be analyzed for repetition. The specific times will vary based on seasonal change as sunrise and sunset times change. It is shown that the levels of sound pollution vary for the different time increments. The morning time is shown to have the the highest average bird call repetition followed by the noon time. Both have a positive tend. The evening time is shown to have the the lowest average bird call repetition. This time increment has a negative trend. The correlation test was conducted to determine significance. The p-value indicated no significance.
Figure 3:Average level of sound pollution in different locations around Michigan State University. The x-axis shows the Average level of sound pollution in decibels, measured by a decibel meter. The y-axis shows the four different locations around Michigan State University which includes Sanford National Area, Cedar Village, Botanical Garden, and Brody Hall at three different times(morning, noon and evening. Data on noise pollution was recorded using the decibel meter at the different locations every five minutes during a thirty minute data collection. The average level of noise pollution was then calculated in decibels at each time and location. The standard mean was calculated for each data point and error bars were placed to depict the amount of error at each data collection.
Figure 4: General Trend of the Average number of speech repetitions in humans vs. the average amount of noise pollution in decibels based on Figure 1. The x-values show the average amount of noise pollution, measured in decibels with a decibel meter, at Brody cafeteria and in Akers cafeteria. The y-values are the average number of times people repeated themselves or were asked to repeat themselves. The line shows the relationship between the average sound level and the average number of time people repeated themselves. Data for speech repetition was manually recorded by writing the number of times people repeated themselves and the noise pollution level was recorded with a decibel meter. The term repetition was decided to be when a person repeats themselves due to noise levels or was asked to repeat themselves by others.
Figure 5: A film with the purpose of providing information on noise pollution and spreading knowledge about what noise pollution is and helping to give understanding about some of the potential problems it can cause for the health of humans and other organisms.