Global Ecology and Conservation (Oct 2021)
Knowledge gaps at the intersection of road noise and biodiversity
Abstract
Roads are a ubiquitous source of noise pollution. Several recent reviews highlight the ecological and evolutionary consequences of anthropogenic noise, but do not specifically focus on roads. I leverage a prior systematic mapping effort to examine patterns in 183 studies of road noise on terrestrial plants and animals. Birds were the most studied taxon (62% of studies) followed by mammals (16%), amphibians (16%), insects (6%), reptiles (< 1%), arachnids (< 1%), and plants (< 1%). North America (USA and Canada) was site of the most in-situ studies (51%). Of the states and provinces in North America, a plurality of the studies were conducted in California (32%). The topic examined most often was communication (40%), followed by behavior (27%), and reproduction (22%). Most studies were experimental (54%) compared to observational (44%) and the proportion of experimental studies has increased yearly. The number of road noise studies published per year has increased over time along with the broader conservation literature. These results might suggest deprioritizing examinations of bird responses to road noise, particularly within North America. However, a plurality of those studies addressed communication, leaving a knowledge gap regarding physiology and space use. Effects of road noise on invertebrates, plants, and reptiles are severely understudied and research on such taxa would aid the management of natural resources.
