EFEITO DO RUÍDO DO TRÁFEGO NO COMPORTAMENTO DE VOCALIZAÇÃO DE PHYSALAEMUS CUVIERI (ANURA, LEPTODACTYLIDAE)

Abstract

Anthropogenic noise is an environmental disturbance capable of provoking a variety of responses in animal behavior. Animals that live constantly in noisy environments are able to show changes over time in morphology, physiology and behavior. Amphibians are animals that need the transmission and reception of acoustic signals to reproduce and are able to adjust their acoustic parameters to deal with noise in various ways. The advertisement call is strongly influenced by environmental factors, habitat loss can cause negative or positive effects, depending on the taxonomic group. In this study we intend to test the influence of roads and landscape modification on the vocalization of Physalaemus cuvieri. The study was carried out in the Cerrado biome and the acoustic activity of P. cuvieri was analyzed from points sampled on the roadsides of the State of Goiás, in areas with dams and/or water puddles, located close - up to 150m away – and distant – at least 500m – from highways. Vocalization activity at these points was analyzed with the help of the Audacity 3.0.2 program and R 4.1.0 software. We established a buffer zone of 500m from each point, and through satellite images, we extracted the percentage of native vegetation. We tested whether distance, signal-to-noise ratio (SRN), percentage of vegetation and number of fragments affect the species' vocalization rate. We applied two generalized linear models, one using distance and percentage of vegetation as predictors of vocalization rate and the other using SRN and percentage of vegetation as predictors of vocalization rate. Our results showed that P. cuvieri decreases its vocalization rate in noisier environments and increases its singing rate in environments further away from the highway. In an environment with less vegetation, its vocalization rate increased.