Why in News?

• Lab experiments which were published in a scientific journal shows that vehicle traffic makes it much harder for at least one species of bird to solve problems, and sharply compromises the ability of some crickets to mate.

About the study

• Hearing the noises of cars driving by is enough to inhibit cognitive performance in songbirds.
• There is mounting evidence that traffic noise — on the rise in most parts of the world — can have serious negative effects on animals, disrupting their ability to communicate, avoid predators, and attract mates.
• Being exposed to traffic noise, for example, more than doubled the time it took for these intelligent birds to remember the location of hidden food, or to remove paper lids over morsels.
• In another study, scientists showed that — for a common species of cricket — traffic noise interferes with their mating ritual, and thus with sexual selection and the process of evolution itself.

 Reference:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/roadsides-too-noisy-for-birds-to-think-crickets-to-mate-studies/article33738582.ece