The noise filter hypothesis predicts that species using higher sound frequencies should be more tolerant of noise pollution, because anthropogenic noise is more intense at low frequencies. Recent work analysed continental‐scale data on anthropogenic noise across the USA and found that passerine species inhabiting more noise‐polluted areas do not have higher peak song frequency but have more complex songs. However, this metric of song complexity is of ambiguous interpretation, because it can indicate either diverse syllables or a larger frequency bandwidth. In the latter case, the finding would support the noise filter hypothesis, because larger frequency bandwidths mean that more sound energy spreads to frequencies that are less masked by anthropogenic noise. We reanalysed how passerine song predicts exposure to noise using a more thorough dataset of acoustic song measurements, and showed that it is large frequency bandwidths, rather than diverse syllables, that predict the exposure of species to noise pollution. Given that larger bandwidths often encompass higher maximum frequencies, which are less masked by anthropogenic noise, our result suggests that tolerance to noise pollution might depend mostly on having the high‐frequency parts of song little masked by noise, thus preventing acoustic communication from going entirely unnoticed at long distances.

中文翻译：

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整个北美雀形目的噪声污染暴露支持噪声过滤器假设

噪声过滤器假设预测，使用较高声频的物种应更能容忍噪声污染，因为人为噪声在低频时更为强烈。最近的工作分析了整个美国的人为噪声的大陆规模数据，发现居住在噪声污染更多地区的雀形目物种的峰值歌曲频率不高，但歌曲更复杂。但是，这种歌曲复杂性的度量标准含糊不清，因为它可以表示不同的音节或更大的频率带宽。在后一种情况下，该发现将支持噪声滤波器的假设，因为较大的频率带宽意味着更多的声音能量会传播到较少被人为噪声掩盖的频率。我们使用更完整的声学歌曲测量数据集重新分析了雀形体歌曲如何预测噪声的暴露，并表明预测物种受到噪声污染的是较大的频率带宽而不是各种音节。鉴于较大的带宽通常包含较高的最大频率，而较少被人为噪声掩盖，因此我们的结果表明，对噪声污染的容忍度可能主要取决于歌曲的高频部分很少被噪声掩盖，从而阻止了声音通信的完全传播。长距离不被注意。