Potential effects of traffic noise on anuran call characteristics in Louisiana, USA during winter

Abstract

AbstractUrban environments expose wildlife to levels of anthropogenic noise they would not experience in rural areas (e.g., traffic noise), and research suggests that many species adjust their acoustic signals for optimal transmission in urban soundscapes. However, our understanding of anuran (order Anura) responses to noise pollution in urban environments of the southeastern United States is limited, particularly for species that can breed during winter. Our goal was to examine how vocal anuran advertisement call characteristics during winter varied with increasing distance from roadways in bottomland hardwoods of Louisiana, USA. We deployed acoustic recording units at two sites (i.e., rural and urban) perpendicular to Interstate 10 at 200‐, 400‐, and 600‐m intervals (i.e., close, middle, and far) from November 2019 to January 2020. We detected Cajun Chorus Frogs (Pseudacris fouquettei) and Cricket Frogs (Acris spp.) at our rural site, and only detected Cricket Frogs at our urban site. At the rural site, Cajun Chorus Frogs produced longer duration notes at the far location compared to the middle location. At the urban site, Cricket Frogs produced higher dominant frequency calls at the close location compared to the far and middle locations and longer duration notes at the far location compared to the close location. We were unable to account for additional factors in our models (e.g., temperature, noise levels), but our results generally align with previous research. Our study provides baseline data for future research to examine the potential effects of traffic noise on winter advertisement calls in locations with similar environmental conditions and species.