Long-term effects of noise pollution on the avian dawn chorus: a natural experiment facilitated by the closure of an international airport

Abstract

The impacts of noise pollution on birdsong have been extensively investigated but potential long-term effects are neglected. Near airports, where noise levels are particularly high, birds start singing earlier in the morning, probably to gain more time of uninterrupted singing before air traffic sets in. In a previous study, we documented this phenomenon in the vicinity of Berlin Tegel airport. In 2020, Tegel airport closed down, giving us the opportunity to investigate potential long-term effects after noise removal and to gain insight into the mechanisms underlying the advancement of dawn singing. We found that several species at the airport shifted their song onset back after the closure and now had similar schedules to their conspecifics at a control site. Some species, however, still sang earlier near the closed airport. While the first suggests plastic adaptation, the latter suggests selection for early singing males in areas with long-lasting noise pollution. Our findings indicate that a uniform behavioural response to anthropogenic change in a community can be based on diverging evolutionary mechanisms. Overall, we show that noise pollution can have long-lasting effects on animal behaviour and noise removal may not lead to immediate recovery in some species.