Noise and light pollution elicit endocrine responses in urban but not forest frogs

Nov 18, 2023Hormones and behavior

Noise and light pollution trigger hormone changes in city frogs but not in forest frogs

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Abstract

Urban frogs exhibit a differential hormonal response to urban noise and light pollution compared to forest frogs.

Urban frogs showed increased testosterone levels when exposed to urban noise.
Exposure to urban light pollution in urban frogs resulted in decreased corticosterone levels.
Forest frogs did not demonstrate any hormonal changes in response to urban noise or light pollution.
Endocrine differences between urban and forest frogs were observed under both field and laboratory conditions.
The hormonal changes in urban frogs align with behavioral adjustments noted in response to urbanization.

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Urban areas are characterised by the presence of sensory pollutants, such as anthropogenic noise and artificial light at night (ALAN). Animals can quickly adapt to novel environmental conditions by adjusting their behaviour, which is proximately regulated by endocrine systems. While endocrine responses to sensory pollution have been widely reported, this has not often been linked to changes in behaviour, hampering the understanding of adaptiveness of endocrine responses. Our aim was, therefore, to investigate the effects of urbanisation, specifically urban noise and light pollution, on hormone levels in male urban and forest túngara frogs (Engystomops pustulosus), a species with reported population divergence in behaviour in response to urbanisation. We quantified testosterone and corticosterone release rates in the field and in the lab before and after exposure to urban noise and/or light. We show that urban and forest frogs differ in their endocrine phenotypes under field as well as lab conditions. Moreover, in urban frogs exposure to urban noise and light led, respectively, to an increase in testosterone and decrease in corticosterone, whereas in forest frogs sensory pollutants did not elicit any endocrine response. Our results show that urbanisation, specifically noise and light pollution, can modulate hormone levels in urban and forest populations differentially. The observed endocrine responses are consistent with the observed behavioural changes in urban frogs, providing a proximate explanation for the presumably adaptive behavioural changes in response to urbanisation.

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Noise and light pollution elicit endocrine responses in urban but not forest frogs

Abstract

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