As the streets of San Francisco emptied out in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city’s male birds began singing more softly and improving their vocal range, making them “sexier” to females, a study published on Thursday found.
The paper adds to a growing body of research describing how animals — from whales and coyotes to the white-crowned sparrow studied here — have adapted their behaviors to COVID-19 shutdowns that have forced humans to retreat to their homes, a phenomenon dubbed the “anthropause.”
“When the city was loud, they were singing really loudly,” said University of Tennessee behavioral ecologist Elizabeth Derryberry, who led the study published in Science.
Photo: Reuters
However, as city traffic ground to a halt following a statewide shelter-in-place order in the spring, noise levels fell by 50 percent, she said.
The number of vehicles on the Golden Gate Bridge collapsed to 1954 levels, the researchers found.
They compared birdsong data that they collected from previous years to recordings made at the same sites from April to May, and found that sparrows were now singing far more quietly and were capable of hitting much lower notes, which in turn expanded their range and enhanced their overall performance.
Imagine going to a party at a friend’s house: at the start of the night, you speak at a normal volume, but as the place fills up, you need to raise your voice to be heard.
“When you’re shouting at a cocktail party, your voice is not at its best,” Derryberry said, adding that it was similar for the studied birds.
As noise pollution decreased, “their songs also sounded better — they sounded sexier,” she said. “They were better competitors and they sounded like better mates to females.”
The authors said their study showed how quickly birds can adapt to changing environments, and suggests that finding solutions to curbing noise pollution might lead to other positive outcomes, such as higher species diversity.
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