Soundbites is a (hopefully) weekly feature of the coolest, newest bioacoustics, soundscape, and acoustic research, in bite-size form. Plus other cool stuff having to do with sound. Sorry I missed last week!

Pacific wrens change their songs when exposed to noise: this one is a cool one, folks. We’ve seen birds changing their songs in response to anthropogenic noise before, and here is no different: road noise impacted song duration. However, seaside birds exposed to surf noise changed more factors of their song than those singing next to roads. Interestingly, fundamental frequency was never one of the factors changed.

Prairie dogs impacted by road traffic noise: in playback experiments, road noise caused prairie dogs to spend less time aboveground and foraging and more time vigilant. This is a big deal, because prairie dogs are a keystone species.

Acoustic monitoring WORKS!: it’s always encouraging to see a study that shows the effectiveness of acoustic monitoring, and this one is no exception. Nighttime acoustic monitoring accurately assesses information about bird migrations in the Great Lakes!

Fun link of the week: apparently there is a whole website out there called strangesounds.org, but I found one of their lists of weird animal noises and it’s great. #5 is particularly awesome.