We feel more and more every day that our interaction with nature is restricted. It is clear that we are now experiencing a global environmental crisis that leads to a decrease in biodiversity. Depending on the crisis, we encounter changes in every aspect of our life. Scientists conducted a study that showed how the change in the habitat of species and loss of biodiversity due to climate change is rapidly changing the sounds of the natural world.
The sounds of nature have the magical power of reducing stress and purifying the mood. Although what we experience in nature appeals to all our senses, I think it would not be wrong to say that what we hear stands out more than others. In the study, acoustic diversity due to species richness and variation seen in the last 25 years was examined with bird watching data of volunteer ornithologists.
Birds are singing less now
The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, used annual bird-watching data collected through surveys of more than 200,000 field-dwelling birds in Europe and North America. Observations made by ornithologists in late spring and early summer analyzed which species and how many individuals were present in the studied regions. The research revealed a steady decline in acoustic diversity and soundscape density in areas with greater declines in overall species numbers and total countable individuals over the past 25 years.
The results showed that one of the main ways humans relate to nature is in decline, as a result of diminishing the sounds of nature. The research has proven that “natural sounds, which play an important role in establishing and maintaining our connection with nature, are changing due to global declines in bird populations and our world’s soundscapes are becoming less diverse.”
The scientists who conducted the study stated that they hoped to increase the awareness of the current crisis by making the facts about the loss of biodiversity visible.
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