Renata D Alquezar, Lucía Arregui, Regina H Macedo, Diego Gil
{"title":"Birds living near airports do not show consistently higher levels of feather corticosterone.","authors":"Renata D Alquezar, Lucía Arregui, Regina H Macedo, Diego Gil","doi":"10.1093/conphys/coad079","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Noise represents a threat to human and wildlife health, triggering physiological and behavioral challenges to individuals living close to sources of extreme noise. Here, we considered airport environments as sources of potentially stressful stimuli for birds and tested if those living near airports are under higher physiological stress than birds living in quiet sites. We used measurements of CORT in feathers (CORT<sub>f</sub>) as a proxy of chronic stress. We evaluated 14 passerine and 1 non-passerine species, living near three Brazilian airports. We found that, across species, individuals with a better body condition had lower CORT<sub>f</sub> concentration. At the species level, we found that CORT<sub>f</sub> concentration was not consistently affected by airport noise. Comparing individuals living in quiet sites with those living near airports, we found that 2 species had higher and 2 had lower CORT<sub>f</sub> concentrations near airports, while 11 species presented no significant differences between sites. At the population level, model selection indicated that the direction and strength of these differences are weakly related to species' song frequency (peak frequency), as lower-frequency singers tended to present higher CORT<sub>f</sub> levels at airport-affected sites. In summary, we were unable to find a consistent response among species, probably due to species-specific differences in their response to anthropogenic disturbances. Instead, we found that species might be affected differently according to their singing spectral frequency and that individuals in good body condition show lower CORT<sub>f</sub>, suggesting that this measure is consistent with lower physiological stress.</p>","PeriodicalId":54331,"journal":{"name":"Conservation Physiology","volume":"11 1","pages":"coad079"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10588694/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Conservation Physiology","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coad079","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Noise represents a threat to human and wildlife health, triggering physiological and behavioral challenges to individuals living close to sources of extreme noise. Here, we considered airport environments as sources of potentially stressful stimuli for birds and tested if those living near airports are under higher physiological stress than birds living in quiet sites. We used measurements of CORT in feathers (CORTf) as a proxy of chronic stress. We evaluated 14 passerine and 1 non-passerine species, living near three Brazilian airports. We found that, across species, individuals with a better body condition had lower CORTf concentration. At the species level, we found that CORTf concentration was not consistently affected by airport noise. Comparing individuals living in quiet sites with those living near airports, we found that 2 species had higher and 2 had lower CORTf concentrations near airports, while 11 species presented no significant differences between sites. At the population level, model selection indicated that the direction and strength of these differences are weakly related to species' song frequency (peak frequency), as lower-frequency singers tended to present higher CORTf levels at airport-affected sites. In summary, we were unable to find a consistent response among species, probably due to species-specific differences in their response to anthropogenic disturbances. Instead, we found that species might be affected differently according to their singing spectral frequency and that individuals in good body condition show lower CORTf, suggesting that this measure is consistent with lower physiological stress.
期刊介绍:
Conservation Physiology is an online only, fully open access journal published on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology.
Biodiversity across the globe faces a growing number of threats associated with human activities. Conservation Physiology will publish research on all taxa (microbes, plants and animals) focused on understanding and predicting how organisms, populations, ecosystems and natural resources respond to environmental change and stressors. Physiology is considered in the broadest possible terms to include functional and mechanistic responses at all scales. We also welcome research towards developing and refining strategies to rebuild populations, restore ecosystems, inform conservation policy, and manage living resources. We define conservation physiology broadly and encourage potential authors to contact the editorial team if they have any questions regarding the remit of the journal.