Research Initiation Award: Testing the Mechanisms Underlying Noise Avoidance by Animals

历史上黑人学院和大学本科项目 (HBCU-UP) 研究启动奖 (RIA) 为 HBCU 的 STEM 教师提供支持，让他们在其所在机构、NSF 资助的中心、研究密集型机构或国家实验室开展研究。 RIA 项目预计将有助于进一步提高教师的研究能力和效率，改善其所在机构的研究和教学，并让本科生参与研究经验。在国家科学基金会的支持下，温斯顿-塞勒姆州立大学 (WSSU) 寻求与博伊西州立大学声景生态学领域的领导者开展合作，以提高生物学家的研究能力。调查员和几名少数民族本科生将开展一个研究项目，研究噪音对野生动物的影响。噪声是自然和人类系统中一个重要且不断增长的组成部分。人为声音，包括来自交通网络、发电、机动娱乐、城市发展和化石燃料开采的声音，响亮而普遍。偏远的荒野地区也不能幸免，交通噪声几乎是现代声学景观的普遍组成部分，明显的航空、铁路和道路噪声几乎到达美国大陆的所有角落和县。与此同时，自然声音，例如早晨的鸟鸣声或山间河流的雷鸣声，可能是几乎所有环境中都存在的响亮且突出的环境特征。大量工作表明，生物体会因噪音而改变行为和分布，但其基本机制仍然很大程度上未知。该项目提供的教育和研究经验将有助于 WSSU 努力扩大野生动物生物学领域代表性不足的群体的参与，并帮助学生为研究生院和国家 STEM 劳动力做好准备。提出了三个假设来解释动物避免噪音的情况：1）掩盖重要的听觉信息（当信号和噪音在声学上重叠时），2）分心，可用处理资源的限制（独立于信号和噪音重叠），以及 3）噪音厌恶（与压力反应有关）。为了区分这些假设，研究人员和学生将进行一系列基于实验室的实验，重点关注在噪音中觅食的动物的表现和压力。几种蝙蝠和鸟类在狩猎时对声音的依赖程度不同，将在一个大型飞行室中与猎物展开较量。同时，行为将被高速摄像机和心率（感知和压力的衡量标准）拍摄，并使用无线电标签捕获。捕食者将接受训练来定位猎物发出的声音。在实验过程中，将观察动物在安静控制或两个嘈杂的声景条件（每个具有不同的频率分布）下觅食。如果掩蔽负责避免噪声，那么只有当噪声与猎物信号重叠时，觅食成功率才会降低。如果注意力分散是避免噪音的基础，那么两种噪音条件下的觅食缺陷将是相同的。然而，如果厌恶解释了噪音回避，则会观察到心率反应，而觅食成功率不会下降。了解驱动噪声避免的机制对于感官生态学理论和人为噪声政策的发展至关重要。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Historically Black Colleges and Universities-Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) Research Initiation Awards (RIAs) provide support to STEM faculty at HBCUs to pursue research at their home institution, at an NSF-funded Center, at a research intensive institution or at a national laboratory. The RIA projects are expected to help further the faculty member's research capability and effectiveness, to improve research and teaching at their home institution, and to involve undergraduate students in research experiences. With support from the National Science Foundation, Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) seeks to advance the research capacity of a biologist by developing a collaboration with a leader in the field of soundscape ecology at Boise State University. The investigator and several minority undergraduate students will work on a research project examining the influence of noise on wildlife. Noise is an important and growing component in both natural and human systems. Anthropogenic sounds, including those from transportation networks, power generation, motorized recreation, urban development, and fossil fuel extraction are loud and pervasive. Remote wilderness areas are not immune and transportation noise is a near universal component of the modern acoustical landscape with noticeable levels of airway, railway, and roadway noise reaching nearly all corners and counties in the continental USA. Meanwhile natural sounds, such as a morning birdsong chorus or the thunder of a mountain river, can be loud and prominent environmental features that are present in virtually all environments. A substantial body of work has revealed that organisms change behaviors and distributions due to noise, yet the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. The education and research experiences provided by this project will contribute to WSSU's efforts to broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in wildlife biology and also help prepare students for graduate school and the Nation's STEM workforce.Three hypotheses have been proposed to explain noise avoidance by animals: 1) masking of important auditory information (when the signal and noise acoustically overlap), 2) distraction, a limitation of available processing resources (independent of signal and noise overlap), and 3) noise aversion (associated with a stress response). To tease these hypotheses apart, the researcher and students will conduct a series of lab-based experiments focused on performance and stress in animals foraging in noise. Several species of bats and birds that vary in their reliance on sound for hunting will be pitted against prey in a large flight room. Simultaneously, behavior will be filmed with high-speed cameras and heart-rate, a measure of perception and stress, captured using radio tags. Predators will be trained to locate prey-generated sounds. During the experiments the animals will be observed foraging in quiet control or two noisy soundscape conditions (each with different frequency profiles). If masking is responsible for noise avoidance, then a reduction in foraging success should occur only when the noise overlaps with prey signals. If distraction underlies noise avoidance, foraging deficits will be equal for both noise conditions. However, if aversion explains noise avoidance, a heart rate response will be observed with no decline in foraging success. Understanding the mechanisms driving noise avoidance is critical for the development of sensory ecology theory and anthropogenic noise policy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.