Cal Poly Receives Five-Year, Nearly $900,000 Study to Understand Human-Caused Noise and Light Impacts on Birds
A Cal Poly professor and student researchers are embarking on a five-year study to better understand how exposure to human-caused noise and light pollution affects birds.
Clint Francis, a professor of biological sciences and honoree of Cal Poly’s Distinguished Scholarship Award, was awarded $893,079 that is part of a $2.6 million National Science Foundation grant, also involving researchers at Duke University and Washington State University.
The world is becoming more urbanized, and the fundings will allow Francis and his students to answer key questions about how birds will cope with the challenges of an increasingly noisy and bright world, such as:
- What traits allow birds to thrive in polluted areas?
- Do measures of behavior or hormones foretell whether nesting birds will successfully reproduce?
- Do noise and light have the same effects for all species?
“In doing so, the project will build a testable framework for generalizing avian response to human-caused sensory pollution, which will give us important insights on what kind of birds we should see in a more urbanized future,” Francis said.
The study will intensively study six avian species: ash-throated flycatchers; gray flycatchers; mountain bluebirds; Western bluebirds; chipping sparrows; and house finches.
“We picked species with different niches and underlying tolerance to human activities to help understand why species vary in responses to these pollutants,” Francis said. “There is a lot of scientific evidence that noise and light pollution can change behavior and physiology, but whether these effects are linked to impacts that matter for policy, like reproductive success and population trajectories, is a missing link. Essentially, do hormone changes or behavioral responses to light and noise pollution allow birds to succeed or are they early signs of trouble?”
The study will intensively study six avian species: ash-throated flycatchers; gray flycatchers; mountain bluebirds; Western bluebirds; chipping sparrows; and house finches.
“We picked species with different niches and underlying tolerance to human activities to help understand why species vary in responses to these pollutants,” Francis said. “There is a lot of scientific evidence that noise and light pollution can change behavior and physiology, but whether these effects are linked to impacts that matter for policy, like reproductive success and population trajectories, is a missing link. Essentially, do hormone changes or behavioral responses to light and noise pollution allow birds to succeed or are they early signs of trouble?”