Humans are making more sound, and it can interfere with animals finding mates, food and other essential behaviors. Most of the research showing impacts of human-generated sound is largely focused on vertebrates. Biologists at Mississippi State University were curious about sound potentially impacting insects – the largest group of animals on earth. They specifically looked at a tritrophic system: soybean, soybean aphid and predatory lady beetles.
Brandon Barton and colleagues wondered if noise pollution could change the growth rate of plants, soybean aphids and a predatory lady beetle. They coined the term “AC/DC hypothesis” and generated a hypothesis that “rock and roll ain’t noise pollution.” Music was used as a proof-of-concept in this predatory-prey interactions.
They had a lot of treatments, including playing AC/DC in growth chambers at 100 decibels for 14 days. I can’t imagine getting anything else done in the lab those weeks! In the end, the plants and soybean aphids were not affected by the loud music, but the lady beetles were less effective predators. Rock music altered the predation and ultimately those treatments had more aphids compared to treatments with no rock. What the lyrics, vibration or constant repetition of noise pollution? More research is needed to understand changes in behavior.
Matt O’Neal and I dedicated part of our podcast to this research (it starts around 14 minutes). Read the original research paper here!
Links to this article are strongly encouraged, and this article may be republished without further permission if published as written and if credit is given to the author, Integrated Crop Management News, and Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. If this article is to be used in any other manner, permission from the author is required. This article was originally published on July 17, 2018. The information contained within may not be the most current and accurate depending on when it is accessed.
- Professor
- Extension Entomologist Specialist
- ANR Crops Team Leader