Noise Found to Have Long-Term Impacts on Plant Communities

摘要

Noise can have persistent negative impacts on flora, even after the source is removed, according to new research from California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). Biologists studied a woodland dominated by pinon pine and juniper trees located near natural gas wells in New Mexico. They examined seedling recruitment and vegetation diversity at sites where compressor noise had been present for more than 15 years, then examined recruitment and diversity where noise sources had been recently removed or added. They found that locations dominated by noise from compressors had fewer pinon pine saplings and seedlings, compared to quiet ones, and concluded that "the decrease in saplings results from the time when the site was noisy, but the decrease in seedlings revealed that pinon pine seeds still weren't sprouting despite stopping the noise."