Traffic noise stresses out frogs, but some have adapted

“In the United States, traffic noise can be heard nearly everywhere,” said Jennifer Tennessen, first author of the paper who was a graduate student at Penn State at the time of the research and is currently a research associate at Western Washington University. “Noise can have a number of negative consequences on wildlife, for example by interfering with communication and reducing the ability to find food. Frogs are particularly vulnerable to noise because they rely on sound to find mates and reproduce. Wood frogs travel to ponds in the spring to mate and lay their eggs, but many of these ponds are located near noisy roads. We wanted to know if traffic noise has negative physiological effects on wood frogs and, if so, whether they can adapt.”