|
Change of tune: Research has revealed male great tits are having to sing at higher frequencies to make themselves heard, but unfortunately for them this makes them less attractive to the opposite sex It's not just humans that struggle to make themselves heard with the opposite sex in a city. Research has revealed male birds are also having to change their tune in a bid to find a mate. Scientists have found that male great tits are being forced to sing at higher frequencies to drown out the constant urban din of modern life. 电视上五花八门的相亲节目在刺激着城市中诸多剩男剩女的神经末梢，也许我们并没有意识到除了我们自己，和我们一同生活在一个领域的动物也需要“相亲”。随着城市化的道路愈发明显，城市独有的污染也伴随而来，比如光污染、水污染以及声污染等等，这些城市弊病不仅危害着我们的健康，就连和我们一同生活在一个领域的动物，比如鸟儿也受到不良影响。据悉，研究者发现，生活在城市中的雄性鸟类在对雌性鸟类发出“求偶信号”时，必须发出声频“更高、更尖”的叫声、或者改变声调为了让自己爱的雌性鸟儿听到。有意思的是，这一现象与如今城市中的“剩男”增多现象有异曲同工之妙。 But this is seen by the females as less attractive, and so those that sing at this pitch as well as those that cannot make their low-frequency songs heard are at risk of not finding a special feathered 'friend'. Wouter Halfwerk, of Leiden University in the Netherlands, carried out the research. His team recorded the communication between male and female great tits in a Dutch national park between April and May 2009 and 2010. They analysed the paternity of chicks and played the female birds recordings of male songs with different levels of background noise. | 
