Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation

 

The Effects of Road Noise on Pacific Chorus Frog Communication Public Deposited

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/2z10wt39r

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  • Amphibians are experiencing global population declines and are one of the most threatened groups of vertebrates. This can be attributed to multiple environmental stressors such as habitat loss, disease, invasive species, and climate change. For vocal amphibian species, loss of acoustic habitat due to anthropogenic noise may be yet another environmental stressor. The Pacific chorus frog (Pseudacris regilla) is the most common vocal species of the Pacific Northwest. It is described as a generalist that can occupy human-dominated habitat types, including agricultural and urban wetlands. As such, this species is exposed to anthropogenic noise which can interfere with vocalizations during the breeding season. We hypothesized that Pacific chorus frogs would alter the spatial and temporal structure of their breeding vocalizations to accommodate a widespread anthropogenic stressor: road noise. We compared Pacific chorus frog call structure and ambient road noise levels at 8 sites along a gradient of noise exposures in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, USA. We used both passive acoustic monitoring and directional recordings to determine source level (i.e. amplitude or volume), dominant frequency (i.e. pitch), call duration, and call rate of individual frogs and to quantify ambient road noise levels. We found that Pacific chorus frogs significantly reduced their call rate at relatively higher levels of ambient road noise, leading to a reduction in the amount of total time spent calling. We found no other changes to call structure (e.g. frequency and duration). The absence of additional call structure changes to mediate the impact of road noise resulted in a drastic reduction in the active call space of an individual frog. Coupled with the decrease in call rate, this signifies that communication is significantly reduced both spatially and temporally. This may have implications for the reproductive success of this species, which appears to rely on specific call repertoires to portray relative fitness and attract mates. Reduction of acoustic habitat by anthropogenic noise may emerge as a compounding environmental stressor for an already sensitive taxonomic group.
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  • description.provenance : Rejected by Julie Kurtz(julie.kurtz@oregonstate.edu), reason: Rejecting to make a couple formatting revisions - 1) Approval page - the signature lines should be over the listings, Major Professor..., Head of the Department..., Dean of the ..., your name. Also your name should be centered under the line. 2) Abstract page - Center the heading, and center your major professor's name. Underline the title. Everything else looks good. Once revised, log back into ScholarsArchive and go to the upload page. Replace the attached file with the revised PDF and resubmit. Thanks, Julie on 2016-01-20T19:32:26Z (GMT)
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  • description.provenance : Approved for entry into archive by Julie Kurtz(julie.kurtz@oregonstate.edu) on 2016-01-20T21:23:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1223 bytes, checksum: d127a3413712d6c6e962d5d436c463fc (MD5) NelsonDanielleV2016.pdf: 6238421 bytes, checksum: d5be63be8ab9984fc6e707ae88453532 (MD5)

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