UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MATO GROSSO
INSTITUTO DE BIOCIÊNCIAS
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação da Biodiversidade
Exame de Seleção 2013-14
Prova de inglês
Phantom road frightens birds
1
Roads are prevalent across vast stretches of the Earth and 83% of the USA is within
2
1 km of a road. Although some studies have shown positive effects of roads on
3
wildlife, the cumulative effects across taxa are overwhelmingly negative. A recent
4
meta-analysis of 49 datasets including 234 species of mammals and birds across
5
four continents demonstrated that bird and mammal populations decline within 1 and
6
5 km of human infrastructure – including roads – respectively. Despite myriad studies
7
regarding the effects of roads on wildlife, the primary mechanism underlying these
8
effects remains unknown. A given road probably impacts wildlife in several ways –
9
making it exceedingly difficult to estimate the strength of any single effect.
10
Several lines of evidence suggest that traffic noise is a major factor explaining
11
declines in populations of wildlife near roads. But pinpointing traffic noise as a cause
12
has been a problem because past studies of the effects of road noise on wildlife were
13
conducted in the presence of other confounding effects of roads. These include
14
habitat fragmentation, visual and other sensory disturbances, road mortality, and
15
chemical pollution, among others.
16
Christopher McClure, Jesse Barber and their colleagues at Boise State
17
University in Idaho created a 'phantom road' to test the effects of traffic noise without
18
any actual cars or disruptions in the visual landscape. “We present the first study to
19
experimentally apply traffic noise to a roadless area at a landscape scale, thus
20
avoiding the other confounding aspects of roads present in past studies,” said
21
McClure, post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Biological Sciences.
22
“Understanding the effects of road noise can help wildlife managers in the selection,
23
conservation and management of habitat for birds,” said Jesse R. Barber, assistant
1
UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MATO GROSSO
INSTITUTO DE BIOCIÊNCIAS
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação da Biodiversidade
24
professor of biological sciences and one of McClure’s fellow researchers. Beside
25
McClure and Barber, researchers in the study include Heidi E. Ware, graduate
26
student; Jay Carlisle, assistant research professor and research director of the Idaho
27
Bird Observatory; and Gregory Kaltenecker, executive director of the Idaho Bird
28
Observatory.
29
Researchers created a phantom road on a ridge southeast from Lucky Peak,
30
near the Idaho Bird Observatory’s field site. Putting speakers in trees, spaced evenly
31
along a 0.5-kilometre ridge, they played continuous traffic sounds at intervals,
32
alternating four days of noise on with four days off during the autumn migratory
33
period. The researchers monitored multiple sites by conducting daily bird censuses
34
along their phantom road and at a nearby control site, for 7.5 weeks.
35
When recordings played, the number of birds along the road declined
36
significantly. Two species, the cedar waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) and yellow
37
warbler (Setophaga petechia), avoided the noisy road almost completely. “We
38
documented more than a one-quarter decline in bird abundance and almost complete
39
avoidance by some species between noise-on and noise-off periods along the
40
phantom road,” Barber said. “There were no such effects at control sites. This
41
suggests that traffic noise is a major driver of the effects of roads on populations of
42
animals.”
43
In spite of such positive results, the authors of the study pointed that a deep
44
understanding of large-scale ecological phenomena, such as those encountered in
45
road ecology, requires both manipulative experiments and observational studies.
46
Authors also mentioned that more large-scale playback studies are needed to assess
47
the generality of our results among roads, and that future studies should employ a
48
system similar to their ‘phantom road’ to examine the effects of noise on direct
49
measures of habitat quality such as individual fitness, as well as examine the effects
50
of noise on other taxa. The study, entitled “An experimental investigation into the
51
effects of traffic noise on distributions of birds: avoiding the phantom road,” appeared
52
in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
2
UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MATO GROSSO
INSTITUTO DE BIOCIÊNCIAS
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação da Biodiversidade
53
Many authors have suggested that the negative effects of roads on animals are
54
largely owing to traffic noise. Although suggestive, most past studies of the effects of
55
road noise on wildlife were conducted in the presence of the other confounding
56
effects of roads, such as visual disturbance, collisions and chemical pollution among
57
others. We present, to our knowledge, the first study to experimentally apply traffic
58
noise to a roadless area at a landscape scale – thus avoiding the other confounding
59
aspects of roads presented in past studies. We replicated the sound of a roadway at
60
intervals – alternating 4 days of noise on with 4 days off – during the autumn
61
migratory period using a 0.5 km array of speakers within an established stopover site
62
in southern Idaho. We conducted daily bird surveys along our ‘Phantom Road’ and in
63
a nearby control site. We document over a one-quarter decline in bird abundance
64
and almost complete avoidance by some species between noise-on and noise-off
65
periods along the phantom road and no such effects at control sites – suggesting that
66
traffic noise is a major driver of effects of roads on populations of animals.
Bibliography:
Nature, 503:315 (Research Highlights; 21 November 2013). Available at:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v503/n7476/full/503315b.html
Boise State University (Update; 6 November 2013). Available at:
http://news.boisestate.edu/update/2013/11/06/first-kind-study-documents-effects-roadnoises-migratory-birds/
3
UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MATO GROSSO
INSTITUTO DE BIOCIÊNCIAS
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação da Biodiversidade
Com base no que consta e descreve o texto acima, responda às seguintes
perguntas:
1. Qual intervalo de linhas melhor caracterizaria um resumo ou abstract para o
texto apresentado, por conter, em um mesmo parágrafo, uma breve
contextualização do problema, e menções também sucintas sobre o modo como
o estudo foi conduzido, sobre os principais resultados e sobre o possível
significado dos mesmos ?
2. Descreva, com o maior detalhamento possível e com base unicamente em
informações fornecidas no texto, o delineamento experimental empregado pelos
autores para a coleta dos dados utilizados no trabalho.
3. Em que revista o trabalho foi publicado, por quantos autores? Quantos dos
autores eram estudantes de pós-graduação na época da publicação?
4. Em qual parágrafo e intervalos de linhas os autores descrevem o que julgam ser
o principal diferencial e/ou méritos do estudo? Qual é este diferencial e/ou
mérito, segundo os autores?
5. Quais os principais resultados e a principal conclusão do trabalho, relatados no
texto ?
6. Qual a aplicabilidade do estudo, segundo os autores ?
7. Quais as recomendações feitas pelos autores do estudo relatado pelo texto, para
trabalhos subsequentes sobre o tema ?
8. Com base exclusivamente no texto, é CORRETO afirmar que:
1a. ( ) Estudos sobre o efeito de rodovias sobre miriápodos e sobre outros
táxons ainda não são conhecidos;
1b. ( ) Alguns dos efeitos de estradas sobre a fauna tem sido mais bem
estudados, a exemplo da fragmentação de hábitat, atropelamentos e
poluição química associados à construção das mesmas;
1c. ( ) O número de espécies de aves declinou sensivelmente ao longo da
“estrada-fantasma”, em resposta aos sons de tráfego intenso
reproduzidos pelos autores do estudo;
1d. ( ) Os efeitos negativos de estradas sobre populações de aves
possivelmente resultam de uma sinergia de fatores, dentre os quais
as perturbações sonoras avaliadas pelos autores do trabalho a que o
texto se refere.
4