A Study On The Impact Factor Of The Road Traffic Noise To The Song Learning Quality Of The Canary Squabs

The region along the highway line where the behavior of men and natural worldinteract on each other is an important ecology ecotone. With the development of thehighway construction, the road nets extend to the natural hinterland further. On aglobal scale, the impact area of the road nets has reached15%to20%of the wholeland (the statistics in2006). The interference to the natural habitat of the traffic noiseincrease rapidly and a numerous noise accidents have occurred.At present, the research about the impact of the road noise to the natural world mainlycome into the domain of the road ecology. the road ecology is a emerging subject andthe achievement in this field relatively lacked, especially in the study about theinterference to the natural habitat of the traffic noise. Currently, the research is mainlyobserving and counting the abnormal behaviors of birds. And the research is lackingof the quantitative study in the mechanism and law about the interference of thetraffic noise to birds. The research in this field of domestic is seriously laggingbehind.Birds chirping behavior is closely related to their auditory system. Whether to squabsin the song learning period or to adults, the regular auditory input is critical to themaintenance of the birds chirping. And precisely, the traffic noise can disturb birdscausing their songs change through the auditory input. This kind of change in birdsongs is reversible to adults, but is irreversible to squabs, and mostly sharp.Especially for accentors which song structure is more complex, the impact of thetraffic noise to the song is more serious.The period of1to3months after the birth of the accentor fledglings is the importantstage for the development of its songs. In this period, the fledglings are prone to beaffected the quality of their song learning, resulting the obstacle in communicatingwith others. Based on this biological characteristics of the birds, the study programwas born. We choose the canary fledglings as the experiment subject. Firstly, let thefledglings finish the song learning process in the different noise environment.Secondly, after song learning process, quantifying the quality of song they have then.The quantifying parameters include "SONG PHONEMES COFORMITY","SONGTYPES COFORMITY","SONG FREQUENCY DIFFERENCE","SONG SOUNDPRESSURE LEVEL INCREASE". Finally, the relationships between the traffic noisefactor(frequency, sound pressure level) and the quality of the fledglings’ songlearning is being identified through the analysis of the parameters.We got4conclusions as follows:1. The song of canary adult is crucial in the fledgling song learning process.2. The interference of the road traffic noise is significant to the song learning processof canary fledgling.3. For the "frequency" factor of the road traffic noise: to the song quality of thefledglings, the impact of the "high-frequency" level is the weakest. The"low-frequency" level and the "middle-frequency" level have the similar impact andbeing stronger than the "low-frequency" level.4. For the "sound pressure level" factor of the road traffic noise: to the song quality ofthe fledglings, the "+30dB" level has the most serious impact, the "+20dB" level inthe middle, and the "+10dB" level is the weakest.