Research on behavioral adjustments to anthropogenic noise funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (IOS-1256799), the Department of Defence, and Western Michigan University's Faculty Research and Creative Activities Award.
How do animals respond to human-driven environmental change?
Humans have altered the natural world in many ways with diverse impacts on wildlife. We study male songbirds to investigate how a critical behavior for reproduction - song - is affected by environmental change. Male songbirds sing to attract mates and to defend breeding territories. Human-generated or anthropogenic noise, artificial lights, and built structures in their environment can all affect how, when and where males sing.
We're broadly interested in understanding how anthropogenic noise and artificial light at night affect behavioral flexibility and singing. In the process of exploring male responses to changed environments, we've also investigated and visualized the patterns of noise over time and space on ecologically relevant scales.
Current projects:
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characterizing temporal variation in noise and assessing the extent of behavioral flexibility in singing
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characterizing spatial variation in noise and understanding how males use space on their territories
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understanding drivers of spatial variation in noise in urban and natural areas
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understanding impacts on noise on partitioning of acoustic communities
Selected Publications
Gill, S.A., E.E. Grabarczyk & D. Potvin. 2021. Human impacts on avian communication. In. D. Proppe (ed.), Songbird behavior: implications for conservation and management in the Anthropocene. CRC Press.
Grabarczyk, E.E. & S.A. Gill. 2019. Anthropogenic noise masking diminishes house wren (Troglodytes aedon) song transmission in urban natural areas. Bioacoustics. https://doi.org/10.1080/09524622.2019.1621209
Grabarczyk, E.E., Vonhof, M.J. & S.A. Gill. 2020. Social context and noise affect within and between-male song adjustments in a common passerine. Behavioral Ecology 31:1150-1158.https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/araa066
Stuart, C.J., E.E. Grabarczyk, M.J. Vonhof & S.A. Gill. 2019. Social factors, not anthropogenic noise or artificial light, influence the onset of dawn singing in a common songbird. The Auk 136:ukz045 https://doi.org/10.1093/auk/ukz045
Job, J. R., S. L. Kohler & S. A. Gill. 2016. Song adjustments by an open habitat bird to noise, urban structure, and vegetation. Behavioral Ecology