EFFECTS OF ANTHROPOGENIC NOISE ON COGNITION AND GROWTH IN THE ZEBRA FINCH (TAENIOPYGIA GUTTATA)

Urban noise is common in anthropogenic environments and impacts behavior and health in wildlife. Noise has been shown to negatively affect cognitive processes such as attention and memory in animals. Cognition is tightly linked with the survival of an organism and so urban noise can potentially hinder cognitive processes and the subsequent survival of the organism. I split my thesis into two experiments: (1) I tested if urban noise impacts avian cognitive performance by testing adult zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), a songbird, on several cognition tasks in the presence or absence of urban noise playback. I found that urban noise reduces cognitive performance in a novel foraging task, but not in color association or spatial memory tasks. (2) I tested if urban noise impacts growth and cognitive development by examining adult zebra finches in a variety of cognition tasks after exposing them to urban noise, pink noise, or no noise during their first 90 days of life. I took measurements of wing chord, tarsus length, mass, and bill ornamentation, to test for effects of urban noise on development. I found no evidence that urban noise exposure during development affects cognitive performance in adulthood. I found some evidence that urban noise exposure during development affects bill ornamentation, but not measures of growth. Together, these results suggest that urban noise exposure can have immediate effects on cognitive performance, but I found little evidence that chronic noise exposure during development can have long-term effects in the zebra finch.