Anthropogenic Noise and its Effect on Animal Communication: An Interface Between Comparative Psychology and Conservation Biology

Conservation biology and comparative psychology rarely intersect, in part because conservation biology typically emphasizes populations whereas comparative psychology concentrates on individual organisms. However, both fields could benefit from their integration. Conservation biology can profit from an enhanced understanding of individual-level impacts of habitat alteration and the resulting implications for conservation mitigation strategies. Comparative psychology can gain from increased attention to the mechanisms of adjustment used by organisms to “in vivo experiments” created by anthropogenic change. In this paper, we describe a conceptual framework useful for applying our understanding of animal communication to conservation biology. We then review studies of animal communication with conservation implications, and report our own preliminary work that demonstrates our framework in action.