The Importance of Ambient Sound Level to Characterise Anuran Habitat

Habitat characterisation is a pivotal step of any animal ecology study. The choice of variables used to describe habitats is crucial and need to be relevant to the ecology and behaviour of the species, in order to reflect biologically meaningful distribution patterns. In many species, acoustic commu...

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Main Authors:	Goutte, Sandra, Dubois, Alain, Legendre, Frédéric
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2013
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3804622/

id	pubmed-3804622
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-38046222013-11-07 The Importance of Ambient Sound Level to Characterise Anuran Habitat Goutte, Sandra Dubois, Alain Legendre, Frédéric Research Article Habitat characterisation is a pivotal step of any animal ecology study. The choice of variables used to describe habitats is crucial and need to be relevant to the ecology and behaviour of the species, in order to reflect biologically meaningful distribution patterns. In many species, acoustic communication is critical to individuals’ interactions, and it is expected that ambient acoustic conditions impact their local distribution. Yet, classic animal ecology rarely integrates an acoustic dimension in habitat descriptions. Here we show that ambient sound pressure level (SPL) is a strong predictor of calling site selection in acoustically active frog species. In comparison to six other habitat-related variables (i.e. air and water temperature, depth, width and slope of the stream, substrate), SPL had the most important explanatory power in microhabitat selection for the 34 sampled species. Ambient noise was particularly useful in differentiating two stream-associated guilds: torrents and calmer streams dwelling species. Guild definitions were strongly supported by SPL, whereas slope, which is commonly used in stream-associated habitat, had a weak explanatory power. Moreover, slope measures are non-standardized across studies and are difficult to assess at small scale. We argue that including an acoustic descriptor will improve habitat-species analyses for many acoustically active taxa. SPL integrates habitat topology and temporal information (such as weather and hour of the day, for example) and is a simple and precise measure. We suggest that habitat description in animal ecology should include an acoustic measure such as noise level because it may explain previously misunderstood distribution patterns. Public Library of Science 2013-10-21 /pmc/articles/PMC3804622/ /pubmed/24205070 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078020 Text en © 2013 Goutte et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Goutte, Sandra Dubois, Alain Legendre, Frédéric
spellingShingle	Goutte, Sandra Dubois, Alain Legendre, Frédéric The Importance of Ambient Sound Level to Characterise Anuran Habitat
author_facet	Goutte, Sandra Dubois, Alain Legendre, Frédéric
author_sort	Goutte, Sandra
title	The Importance of Ambient Sound Level to Characterise Anuran Habitat
title_short	The Importance of Ambient Sound Level to Characterise Anuran Habitat
title_full	The Importance of Ambient Sound Level to Characterise Anuran Habitat
title_fullStr	The Importance of Ambient Sound Level to Characterise Anuran Habitat
title_full_unstemmed	The Importance of Ambient Sound Level to Characterise Anuran Habitat
title_sort	importance of ambient sound level to characterise anuran habitat
description	Habitat characterisation is a pivotal step of any animal ecology study. The choice of variables used to describe habitats is crucial and need to be relevant to the ecology and behaviour of the species, in order to reflect biologically meaningful distribution patterns. In many species, acoustic communication is critical to individuals’ interactions, and it is expected that ambient acoustic conditions impact their local distribution. Yet, classic animal ecology rarely integrates an acoustic dimension in habitat descriptions. Here we show that ambient sound pressure level (SPL) is a strong predictor of calling site selection in acoustically active frog species. In comparison to six other habitat-related variables (i.e. air and water temperature, depth, width and slope of the stream, substrate), SPL had the most important explanatory power in microhabitat selection for the 34 sampled species. Ambient noise was particularly useful in differentiating two stream-associated guilds: torrents and calmer streams dwelling species. Guild definitions were strongly supported by SPL, whereas slope, which is commonly used in stream-associated habitat, had a weak explanatory power. Moreover, slope measures are non-standardized across studies and are difficult to assess at small scale. We argue that including an acoustic descriptor will improve habitat-species analyses for many acoustically active taxa. SPL integrates habitat topology and temporal information (such as weather and hour of the day, for example) and is a simple and precise measure. We suggest that habitat description in animal ecology should include an acoustic measure such as noise level because it may explain previously misunderstood distribution patterns.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2013
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3804622/
_version_	1612019834399227904

The Importance of Ambient Sound Level to Characterise Anuran Habitat

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