ArticlePeerJ2016
Experimental exposure to urban and pink noise affects brain development and song learning in zebra finches (Taenopygia guttata).
Article in PeerJ, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- The impact of urbanisation on social behaviour: a comprehensive review.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Pooled it
- Pink noise promotes sooner state transitions during bimanual coordination.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Article
- A preliminary comparison of a songbird's song repertoire size and other song measures between an urban and a rural site.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Selecting auditory alerting stimuli for eagles on the basis of auditory evoked potentials.Conservation physiology · 2022Article
- How urbanization affects sexual communication.Ecology and evolution · 2021Review
- The impact of anthropogenic noise on individual identification via female song in Black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus).Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Traffic noise disrupts vocal development and suppresses immune function.Science advances · 2021Article
- Seasonality and social factors, but not noise pollution, influence the song characteristics of two leaf warbler species.PloS one · 2021Article
- Traffic noise exposure depresses plasma corticosterone and delays offspring growth in breeding zebra finches.Conservation physiology · 2019Article
- Acoustic adaptation to city noise through vocal learning by a songbird.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Article
- Chronic anthropogenic noise disrupts glucocorticoid signaling and has multiple effects on fitness in an avian community.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Timing matters: traffic noise accelerates telomere loss rate differently across developmental stages.Frontiers in zoology · 2018Article
- Higher songs of city birds may not be an individual response to noise.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recently, numerous studies have observed changes in bird vocalizations-especially song-in urban habitats. These changes are often interpreted as adaptive, since they increase the active space of the signal in its environment. However, the proximate mechanisms driving cross-generational changes in song are still unknown. We performed a captive experiment to identify whether noise experienced during development affects song learning and the development of song-control brain regions. Zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) were bred while exposed, or not exposed, to recorded traffic urban noise (Study 1) or pink noise (Study 2). We recorded the songs of male offspring and compared these to fathers' songs. We also measured baseline corticosterone and measured the size of song-control brain regions when the males reached adulthood (Study 1 only). While male zebra finches tended to copy syllables accurately from tutors regardless of noise environment, syntax (the ordering of syllables within songs) was incorrectly copied affected by juveniles exposed to noise. Noise did not affect baseline corticosterone, but did affect the size of brain regions associated with song learning: these regions were smaller in males that had been had been exposed to recorded traffic urban noise in early development. These findings provide a possible mechanism by which noise affects behaviour, leading to potential population differences between wild animals occupying noisier urban environments compared with those in quieter habitats.
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