Speaker
Description
Noise pollution is an often-overlooked but significant factor contributing to the loss of biodiversity. It disrupts many biological processes, for example by increasing the energy required for communication, masking signals that are important for mating or warning, driving individuals away from feeding grounds, disrupting orientation, temporarily impairing hearing, or even causing damage to the ears of individual animals. Investigating the specific hearing abilities of species can provide taxon-specific information that is useful for comparative analyses in bioacoustics, for impact assessments, and for the taxon-specific parameterisation of noise propagation models. Noise propagation models are frequently used in urban planning to assess noise-affected areas and to design regulatory or structural noise abatement measures. To date, they have been used exclusively for modelling based on human hearing capabilities. As part of the EU project PLAN-B (https://plan-b-project.eu/), we have compiled data from nearly 490 audiograms of 316 species from 112 families of insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals into a database, developed a statistical approach to harmonisation, carried out comparative analyses, and demonstrated how differences in species-specific hearing abilities affect the results of noise propagation models. The implications for our understanding of species-specific perception of the environment and the application of this knowledge to environmental impact assessments, nature conservation and the design of mitigation measures are described.
| Status Group | Postdoctoral Researcher |
|---|---|
| FOR TALKS: Poster Presentation Option | No, I prefer to present only as a talk. |