title: Learning to cope: vocal adjustment to urban noise is correlated with prior experience in black-capped chickadees.
abstract: Urban noise can interfere with avian communication through masking, but birds can reduce this interference by altering their vocalizations. Although several experimental studies indicate that birds can rapidly change their vocalizations in response to sudden increases in ambient noise, none have investigated whether this is a learned response that depends on previous exposure. Black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) change the frequency of their songs in response to both fluctuating traffic noise and experimental noise. We investigated whether these responses to fluctuating noise depend on familiarity with noise. We confirmed that males in noisy areas sang higher-frequency songs than those in quiet areas, but found that only males in already-noisy territories shifted songs upwards in immediate response to experimental noise. Unexpectedly, males in more quiet territories shifted songs downwards in response to experimental noise. These results suggest that chickadees may require prior experience with fluctuating noise to adjust vocalizations in such a way as to minimize masking. Thus, learning to cope may be an important part of adjusting to acoustic life in the city.
authors.affiliation: Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, University of Northern British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada V2N4Z9 stefanie.lazerte@unbc.ca.
authors.forename: Stefanie E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: LaZerte
authors.affiliation: Behavioural Biology, Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Slabbekoorn
authors.affiliation: Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, University of Northern British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada V2N4Z9.
authors.forename: Ken A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Otter
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D002947:Cities; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise; D046109:Passeriformes / Q000502:physiology*; D014828:Vocalization, Animal / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: anthropogenic noise; behavioural plasticity; black-capped chickadees; learning; vocal adjustment