Urban Song Variation
A spectrogram of a cardinal song
|
I received my masters in natural resources at The Ohio State University, where I focused on behavioral variation of a common forest breeding bird under the advisement of Dr. Amanda Rodewald. I was fortunate to get the opportunity to conduct my study in the same forest parks that Rodewald has been using to study the effects of urbanization and invasive plants on bird communities since 2003.
|
A male cardinal
We know that some, but not all, birds avoid breeding in the most urban areas. But for the species that stick around, is the quality of habitat degraded? For my research, I was really interested in whether surrounding sensory pollution had negative consequences for birds that actively breed in urban parks. I was particularly interested in noise pollution from busy roads, and whether it can interrupt communication systems. I already knew that urban birds tend to sing different songs in the city, from numerous great studies by behavioral ecologists in Europe and in the US. However, I noticed immediately that there were other environmental characteristics that were different in urban parks, compared to rural parks. For example, urban parks tend to be noiser, but also have higher densities of birds, and higher densities of understory plants. For my first chapter, I used the common Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) to simultaneously test several hypotheses for song variation to see which variable best predicted the changes we observed.
For my second chapter, I wanted to test whether there were consequences for birds that sing different urban songs. In other words, is the relationship between song and fitness disrupted in urban forests? You can read about the results of my study here:
Publications:
For my second chapter, I wanted to test whether there were consequences for birds that sing different urban songs. In other words, is the relationship between song and fitness disrupted in urban forests? You can read about the results of my study here:
Publications:
- Narango, D.L. and Rodewald, A.D. (2017) Signal information of bird song changes in human-dominated landscapes. Urban Ecosystems, 21(1): 41-50. link
- Narango, D.L., and Rodewald, A.D. (2016) Urban-associated drivers of song variation along a rural–urban gradient." Behavioral Ecology 27.2 (2016): 608-616. link, Press Coverage: Bird Watcher's Digest, Conservation Magazine
- Narango, D.L. (2012) Causes and consequences of urban-associated song variation: A study of vocal behavior in the Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), Master’s Thesis, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. OhioLINK thesis pdf
