2026-10-07T00:48:29Z https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai

oai:figshare.com:article/33028100 2026-10-02T09:41:57Z category_24220 item_type_3 month_year_10_2026

<b>Urban Birds Fall into A Communication Trap Through Mismatched Vocal Compensation and Auditory Function</b> Xu L (20990099) Ecological physiology Acoustic Communication <p dir="ltr">Urbanization elevates chronic anthropogenic noise that can mask acoustic communication, yet its system-level consequences remain poorly understood. Here, we show that urban environments are associated with a mismatch between signal production and reception. In a common urban bird, the Eurasian tree sparrow (<i>Passer montanus</i>), urban and rural populations differ markedly in syllable repertoires, with only a subset of syllable types shared between habitats. Acoustic differences therefore reflect both changes in syllable composition and syllable-specific modifications of shared syllables, including higher peak frequencies and intensities in several urban syllable types. In parallel, urban birds exhibit selective reductions in auditory responsiveness, smaller ear apertures, and degraded cochlear hair cells, indicating constrained peripheral input. At the neural level, urban individuals show reduced neurogenesis in both the lateral ventricle and <a href="" target="_blank">caudomedial </a>nidopallium, alongside proteomic shifts toward stress responses and synaptic maintenance and away from neuronal development. Together, these coordinated changes support a communication trap, in which altered vocal signaling does not yield proportional gains in effective communication. These findings link urban soundscapes to cross-level changes in sensory and neural systems and highlight constraints on communication in rapidly urbanizing ecosystems.</p> 2026-10-02T09:41:57Z Dataset Dataset 10.6084/m9.figshare.33028100.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/_b_Urban_Birds_Fall_into_A_Communication_Trap_Through_Mismatched_Vocal_Compensation_and_Auditory_Function_b_/33028100 CC BY 4.0