Meeting Abstract
The effects of anthropogenic noise on animals have been a topic of increasing concern over the past decade. Many studies have focused on the effects of traffic noise on vocal signaling in animals, but less is known about whether traffic noise has non-acoustic, detrimental effects on exposed individuals. Noise pollution is one of the leading environmental health risks for humans, and is linked to a myriad of stress-related health problems. Yet little is known about the long-term effects of noise on the health and fitness of wildlife. We investigated direct and cross-generational effects of noise exposure on telomeres, a measure of cellular ageing that is predictive of disease and longevity in humans and other organisms. To test this, we bred zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata in three different noise treatments: 1) parents and their young nestlings were exposed to traffic noise, 2) older offspring that had already left the nest were expose to traffic noise, and 3) neither parents nor offspring were exposed to traffic noise, and examined the effects on offspring telomere length and loss rate. We found that exposure to traffic noise increased telomere loss in older offspring. However, there was no significant effect of parental or early offspring exposure to traffic noise on offspring telomere length or loss rate. These age-dependent differences in telomere loss could occur if parents buffer younger offspring against the detrimental effects of noise exposure and/or if younger offspring are less sensitive to noise pollution. In conclusion, our data highlight the need to consider the developmental stage of an organism as well as parental effects to better understand the ecological consequences of anthropogenic change.
