DOI: 10.5061/dryad.rfj6q57q6
title: Trait mediated effects of anthropogenic noise on bird behavior and fitness

description: Birds are considered especially vulnerable to anthropogenic noise because
 of their reliance on acoustic information. Single-species research shows
 that noise can impact different aspects of bird behavior and consequently
 reduce their fitness. However, we have a limited understanding of how
 ecological and life-history traits mediate responses to anthropogenic
 noise across species. We performed a meta-analysis to quantify noise
 impacts on bird behaviors (communication, cognition, aggression, risk,
 foraging, and habitat use) and fitness-related responses (growth,
 physiology, and reproduction), and how bird traits, such as nesting and
 habitat type, mediated those responses. Using 944 effect sizes from 160
 bird species across 6 continents, we found that anthropogenic noise
 significantly affected various behaviors as well as physiology and has
 strong negative effects on reproductive responses. We also found that
 anthropogenic noise had stronger negative effects on bird reproduction for
 species that nest nearer to the ground, while growth and physiological
 responses were stronger for species that nested in open rather than cavity
 nests and those living in deciduous forests, respectively. Our results
 highlight the characteristics of those birds most vulnerable to noise
 pollution and inform how conservation actions can best reduce the impacts
 of human-made noise in those species’ habitats.
description: # Trait mediated effects of anthropogenic noise on bird behavior and
 fitness Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.rfj6q57q6](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rfj6q57q6) ##
 Description of the data and file structure Data was collected through
 multiple literature searches. One done in 2017 and two co-occurring
 searches done in 2025. The 2025 searches were done through Web of Science
 and using Elicit AI. ### Files and variables #### File:
 Bird-acoustic-meta-analysis-code_2025-11-03.R **Description:**  #### File:
 bird-acoustic-meta-analysis_DATA_2025-12-22.csv **Description:**  #####
 Variables * studyid: study specific ID * effectid: individual ID given to
 each individual response * species: Latin name of species *
 common.x: English common name of species * citation: lead author of paper
 from which data was extracted and year it was published *
 response_cat: response category determined by authors based on response
 measured in original study (aggression, cognition, communication,
 foraging, habitat use, risk, growth, physiology, reproduction) *
 response: response measured in original study * explanatory: source of
 noise as stated in original study * sound_type: category of source of
 noise (urban, military, industrial, other) * amplitude: amplitude measured
 in study at which noise was either measured or projected in experimental
 conditions * experiment_type: observational vs. experimental *
 yi_og: original Hedges’ g that was calculated from our analysis *
 vi: variation associated with Hedges’ g * yi: altered Hedges’ g used for
 further analysis. The sign of Hedges’ g values were altered for
 reproduction and growth responses to reflect impact to fitness (i.e. a
 positive sign represents a positive impact on fitness) * family: taxonomic
 family of the given species * body.size: average body mass of adult
 individuals (g) * diet: the dominant diet type (invertebrate, omnivore,
 plant/seed, fruit/nectar, vertebrate/fish/scavenger) * diet.breadth: the
 number of diet categories a species falls into * clutch.size: average
 clutch size of species * foraging.h: dominant height at which species
 feeds. If species forages at multiple heights equally, both heights are
 listed (ground, ground/understory, midhigh, midhigh/canopy, canopy) *
 nest.type: cavity vs. open nest * nesting.h: average height of nest for
 given species (m) * peak.freq: average frequency of the highest decibel of
 song for given species (dB) * song.l: average song length for given
 species (seconds) * range: average frequency range of song for given
 species (dB) * migratory: whether a species migrates or not. *
 habitat: dominant habitat type. (coastal, coniferous forest, deciduous
 forest, generalist, grassland, mixed forest) * yi_abs: absolute value of
 yi_og. Used for analysis of behavioral responses (aggression, cognition,
 communication, foraging, habitat use, risk) and physiology *
 logsize: logarithm of body size * logsong: logarithm of song length *
 JetzEnglish: English common name from Jetz et al. 2012 *
 JetzSpecies: taxonomic genus and species from Jetz et al. 2012 *
 log_yi_abs: absolute value of the log of yi_og **Data description:** NA:
 not available. Any data we were not able to obtain either from the
 original research from which the effect size was collected or trait data
 for the species is denoted with NA. Blank cells in column log_yi_abs
 indicate values whose original effect size was zero and we could therefore
 not calculate the logarithm for. ## Code/software All analyses were done
 in R using the following packages: MuMin, lme4, lmerTest, jtools,
 tidyverse, metafor, ggsignif, ggpubr, magrittr, dplyr, ape, geiger,
 phytools, corrplt, gridExtra, and grid. ## Access information Other
 publicly accessible locations of the data: *
 [https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.8149076](https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.8149076) Data was derived from the following sources: * n/a