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Fatima Moflehi

FIQWS

9/24/2023

“Noise Pollution Is Changing Forests”

In “Noise Pollution Is Changing Forests” Sindya N. Bhanoo brings up a concern on noise

polluted areas and how it is affecting certain species and plants. She mentions a research study

where it was found that noise polluted areas tend to have more flowers and less trees. The

study explains that the reason behind this event is a domino effect caused by human-made

noise. It was found that hummingbirds move to louder areas to avoid the scrub jay species that

eat their eggs. The increase of hummingbirds leads to the increase of flowers being pollinated. It

was also found that because of noisy areas scrub jays started to avoid collecting pinyon seeds

that are supposed to be used for jays to hide and store food in which they would forget where

they hid them which ultimately causes trees to grow from those forgotten seeds. Because of the

decrease of scrub jays the pinyon seeds were left to mice that would eat all the seeds they

found and leave none for trees to grow. With the decrease of pinyon trees other animal species

that depend on these trees will decrease as well