Substrate-borne noise and its impacts on spider behavior

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will study the impact of human created noise, here road traffic, on animal behavior. Noise has been shown to be a significant problem for animals, whether they be birds, deer, humans, or arthropods like insects and spiders. The investigator will examine the effects of road traffic noise on one of the most common animals on earth, spiders. Spiders, as predators and even plant pollinators, play an important role in maintaining healthy ecosystems and virtually nothing is known about how road noise affects them. This project will explore how road noise levels relate to which species of spider, how many individuals, and the locations where spiders are found. The team will also work with National Park Service scientists to develop tools to estimate noise levels across national parks. Using laboratory experiments, the investigator will also examine the ways that noise affects spider behavior and how different groups, based on how they communicate, may or may not be able to deal with road noise traffic. In the past few years, studies have shown rapid declines in arthropods across the globe and this project has direct implications to conservation. Finally, the project team will study how to effectively promote arthropod conservation to the general public. Noise has multiple deleterious effects across taxa, much of it mediated through behavior. The investigator will examine the effects of noise, particularly substrate-borne noise, on spider behavior. Like the vast majority of invertebrates, spiders use substrate-borne vibrations to guide behaviors such as mating, and anthropogenic noise is hypothesized to interfere with these behaviors. The project team will first measure a ubiquitous noise source, road traffic, to map air- and substrate-borne noise in the field. Next, the project team will conduct behavioral studies with different species that vary in the ways they produce acoustic signals. The project team will conduct studies investigating (1) how noise impacts mating behavior, (2) the ability to modulate behavior in response to noise, and (3) how experience with noise effects this ability. The hypothesis that anthropogenic noise (particularly substrate-borne noise) will negatively impact mating and that the ability to respond to noise is related to how species produce their signals will be tested. Linking field and laboratory studies will allow the investigator to test one potential mechanism driving the documented losses in arthropod biodiversity and the cascading effects of this on biodiversity. In addition to these research goals, the project team will also (1) collaborate with National Park Service scientists to build tools to estimate substrate-borne noise, (2) explore strategies to promote invertebrate conservation by examining the viewpoints of different stakeholders to invertebrates, and (3) develop outreach and curriculum materials for K-12 students using spiders aimed at teaching fundamental principles in arthropod biology and conservation. 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.