Some City Birds Are Changing Their Tune



European starlings are one of the many bird species changing their songs
 in urban environments. Image by 4028mdk09 at Wikimedia Commons.

The human world population has climbed to over 7.1 billion people and for the first time ever, more than half of us live in an urban area. Urban areas are spreading and more animals are either getting pushed out or are becoming urbanized in the process. Birds are among the many species we are used to seeing and hearing in our cities, but how exactly are they and their songs being affected by urban spread?

This week at Accumulating Glitches I tell the story of how urbanization is changing our avian soundscape. Check it out here.

And to learn more, check this out:

Slabbekoorn, H. (2013). Songs of the city: noise-dependent spectral plasticity in the acoustic phenotype of urban birds Animal Behaviour (85), 1089-1099 DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.01.021