A meta-analysis on the evolution of the Lombard effect reveals that amplitude adjustments are a widespread vertebrate mechanism.

Animal communication is central to many animal societies, and effective signal transmission is crucial for individuals to survive and reproduce successfully. One environmental factor that exerts selection pressure on acoustic signals is ambient noise. To maintain signal efficiency, species can adjust signals through phenotypic plasticity or microevolutionary response to natural selection.

Species sensitivities to a global pollutant: A meta-analysis on acoustic signals in response to anthropogenic noise.

Anthropogenically driven environmental changes affect our planet at an unprecedented rate. Among these changes are those in the acoustic environment caused by anthropogenic noise, which can affect both animals and humans. In many species, acoustic communication plays a crucial role to maintain social relationships by exchanging information via acoustic signals.

The effects of anthropogenic noise on animals: a meta-analysis.

Anthropogenic noise has become a major global pollutant and studies have shown that noise can affect animals. However, such single studies cannot provide holistic quantitative assessments on the potential effects of noise across species. Using a multi-level phylogenetically controlled meta-analysis, we provide the first holistic quantitative analysis on the effects of anthropogenic noise.

Aquatic noise pollution: implications for individuals, populations, and ecosystems.

Anthropogenically driven environmental changes affect our planet at an unprecedented scale and are considered to be a key threat to biodiversity. According to the World Health Organization, anthropogenic noise is one of the most hazardous forms of anthropogenically driven environmental change and is recognized as a major global pollutant. However, crucial advances in the rapidly emerging research on noise pollution focus exclusively on single aspects of noise pollution, e.

Anthropogenic noise affects vocal interactions.

Animal communication plays a crucial role in many species, and it involves a sender producing a signal and a receiver responding to that signal. The shape of a signal is determined by selection pressures acting upon it. One factor that exerts selection on acoustic signals is the acoustic environment through which the signal is transmitted.

Sex-specific timing of mate searching and territory prospecting in the nightingale: nocturnal life of females.

Formal models have shown that diel variation in female mate searching is likely to have profound influence on daily signalling routines of males. In studies on acoustic communication, the temporal patterns of the receivers' signal evaluation should thus be taken into account when investigating the functions of signalling. In bird species in which diel patterns of signalling differ between males singing to defend a territory or to attract a mate, the diel patterns of mate and territory prospecting are suggested to depend on the sex of the prospector.

The day after: effects of vocal interactions on territory defence in nightingales.

1. Models on territory acquisition and tenure predict that territorial animals benefit by adjusting territorial defence behaviour to previous challenges they had experienced within the socially complex environment of communication networks. 2.