Urban noise pollution can negatively affect the behavior and survival of animals, but a new study suggests that intelligence may help some individuals better cope with noise.
Researchers used observations, playbacks, and cognitive tests to see how Australian magpies respond to noise.Most magpies were less able to respond appropriately to alarm calls in the presence of loud human-made noise.Australian magpies have made themselves at home in human cities, but that doesn’t mean that urban environments are free of challenges.
For the new study, Blackburn and her colleagues focused on how differences in cognitive ability impact individual responses to noise in a population of Australian magpies living in Perth, Western Australia. These birds have been studied consistently since 2013 and most have been fitted with colored bands on their legs for easy identification.First, the researchers followed 75 wild magpies for 20-minute periods, noting all their behaviors and the presence of any human-made noise.
The final step was administering a cognitive test to the magpies. Blackburn and colleagues used an associative learning task in which the magpies had to associate a specific color with a food reward. “The smarter the bird, the quicker they learn this association,” says Blackburn.From their observations, the researchers saw that loud human-made noises resulted in changes in the magpies’ behavior.
The playback experiments revealed that plane noise made it harder for the birds to respond to a magpie alarm call . About 37 percent of birds fled for cover when an alarm call was played by itself. When the noise of a plane flying overhead was added to the alarm playback, only 8 percent of the birds sought cover.
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