Fitness costs as well as benefits are important when considering responses to anthropogenic noise

Jade Read, Gareth Jones and Andrew N. Radford

Behavioral Ecology, 2014, vol. 25, issue 1, 4-7

Abstract: Trade-offs lie at the heart of behavioral ecology, with our ultimate understanding of many behaviors reliant on an assessment of both fitness benefits and costs. However, the rapidly expanding research literature on the impacts of anthropogenic noise (a recently recognized global pollutant) tends to focus on the benefits likely to be accrued by any resulting behavioral adaptations or plasticity. In particular, although studies investigating acoustic communication (the topic receiving the most attention to date) invariably discuss, and occasionally attempt to measure, the perceived benefits in terms of reduced masking that might arise from vocal adjustments by signalers, only rarely are the potential fitness costs even mentioned. The bias toward benefits prevents a full understanding of the consequences of anthropogenic noise, including the implications for population viability and community structure. Here, we argue for a greater consideration of fitness costs, outline a number of specific examples (reduced transmission distances, increased risk of predation/parasitism, altered energy budgets, loss of vital information), make suggestions about how to move forward, and showcase why a balanced view is as crucial in this field as any other aspect of behavioral ecology.

Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/art102 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:25:y:2014:i:1:p:4-7.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().