Impacts of Traffic Infrastructure on Urban Bird Communities: A Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Abstract needs to include some numerical values of experimental trials, now it is mere statement; Improve it please

Introduction does contain any clear aims of the research work being presented in the paper

Aims and Methods part does not show clear and comprehensive research work surfing using various surf engines, it is mentioning only one or few

Line 267, the concept and elaboration of ALAN, is not clear, revise it, please

Species loss or endangerness or extinction red line or zone is missing in the paper, let it be revise and improve it

Conclusion is too long, revise and make it precise and provide here take-home message for readers and researchers

Remove all the references from conclusion section

Also add recommendation or future perspectives of research

 

Author Response

Author's answers to Reviewer 1

Abstract needs to include some numerical values of experimental trials, now it is mere statement; Improve it please

• Answer 1: We do not believe numerical values of experimental trials belong into the abstract of our review paper and leave it as it is.

Introduction does contain any clear aims of the research work being presented in the paper

• Answer 2: We already stated the aims here: Abstract, L.17-19, and Aims and Methods, L.84-97. But, to make a clearer statement in this section, we inserted during revision a line in the Introduction L.79-82, following your recommendation and that of Reviewer 3.

Aims and Methods part does not show clear and comprehensive research work surfing using various surf engines, it is mentioning only one or few

• Answer 3: We described how we conducted the qualitative review, but added some more information here: L.89, L.103, L.108-111.

Line 267, the concept and elaboration of ALAN, is not clear, revise it, please

• Answer 4: ALAN was explained here: L.180 “Furthermore, artificial light at night (ALAN) has been found to alter sleep behaviour”.

Species loss or endangerness or extinction red line or zone is missing in the paper, let it be revise and improve it

• Answer 5: We do not understand this comment, since we have not found indication that urban traffic (infrastructure) directly contributed to extinction. Please rephrase and clarify if necessary.

Conclusion is too long, revise and make it precise and provide here take-home message for readers and researchers

Remove all the references from conclusion section

• Answer 6: The conclusion serves here as a discussion of the chapters before (as in the qualitative review Díaz et al. 2022, “Concluding remarks” and in the systematic quantitative review and meta-analysis Campbell et al. 2022, “Discussion”). We changed the Chapter header to “Discussion” and prefer to leave the references in the text.

Also add recommendation or future perspectives of research

• Answer 7: In the Conclusion (now “Discussion”), we already gave specific advice for future research in L. 517-526. Furthermore, we already stressed this point in Chapter 4 “Research priorities and study designs”, which focussed on this topic. We therefore prefer to keep this section short.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article presented is of great interest to the scientific community.  I consider that the bibliographic search has been correct, including current and varied bibliography with more than 100 articles found and citing 90 of them.

 

L-29-32 I would delete the following sentence: “This link was made even clearer in recent macroecological studies...”

 

L-183  A recent review on the impact of ALAN should be mentioned: Marangoni, L. F., Davies, T., Smyth, T., Rodríguez, A., Hamann, M., Duarte, C., ... & Levy, O. (2022). Impacts of Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) in marine ecosystems–a review. Global Change Biology.

 

It would be interesting to mention something about shearwaters, which are very affected by light pollution: Rodríguez, A., Burgan, G., Dann, P., Jessop, R., Negro, J. J., & Chiaradia, A. (2014). Fatal attraction of short-tailed shearwaters to artificial lights. PLoS One, 9(10), e110114.

 

L-186  Does mortality increase on less well-lit roads?

L-192, It would be good to mention this study where the deaths of species on the roads of an island are analyzed.

Tejera, G., Rodríguez, B., Armas, C., & Rodríguez, A. (2018). Wildlife-vehicle collisions in Lanzarote biosphere reserve, Canary Islands. PLoS One, 13(3), e0192731.

 

 

Author Response

Author's answers to Reviewer 2

The article presented is of great interest to the scientific community.  I consider that the bibliographic search has been correct, including current and varied bibliography with more than 100 articles found and citing 90 of them.

• Answer 1: Following a comment of Reviewer 1, we added more information on how we conducted the search (89, L.103, L.108-111.), and included further references (including your recommendations) that seemed relevant since the submission of this manuscript.

L-29-32 I would delete the following sentence: “This link was made even clearer in recent macroecological studies...”

• Answer 2: We believe this sentence is important to point out right at the beginning of the article how humans and wildlife (birds) are connected (connection with nature, improvement of human wellbeing), and therefore, why this work is relevant.

L-183  A recent review on the impact of ALAN should be mentioned: Marangoni, L. F., Davies, T., Smyth, T., Rodríguez, A., Hamann, M., Duarte, C., ... & Levy, O. (2022). Impacts of Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) in marine ecosystems–a review. Global Change Biology.

• Answer 3: We inserted the reference and changed the sentence here: L. 195, “Previous literature reviews showed that there is a broad body of knowledge on ALAN and its various effects on birds [52-54], but we found that studies…”. Thank you for the recommendation.

It would be interesting to mention something about shearwaters, which are very affected by light pollution: Rodríguez, A., Burgan, G., Dann, P., Jessop, R., Negro, J. J., & Chiaradia, A. (2014). Fatal attraction of short-tailed shearwaters to artificial lights. PLoS One, 9(10), e110114.

• Answer 4: We added this reference in L.191 and 200-201 “would result in fewer collisions with human infrastructure [50], to add the risk of collision as a side effects of ALAN.

L-186  Does mortality increase on less well-lit roads?

• Answer 5: It is to expect that mortality increases on well-lit roads, as birds are attracted to light (migrants, seabirds, nocturnal birds). We added more references, and rephrased sentences in the paragraph L.195-205. Studies on the direct impact of street lighting in urban environments were not found, but of light emission by buildings (Parkins et al. 2015, L.204).

L-192, It would be good to mention this study where the deaths of species on the roads of an island are analyzed.

Tejera, G., Rodríguez, B., Armas, C., & Rodríguez, A. (2018). Wildlife-vehicle collisions in Lanzarote biosphere reserve, Canary Islands. PLoS One, 13(3), e0192731.

• Answer 6: Thank you for the reference. We mention this study now in L.209-211: “A study on Lanzarote, Canary Islands showed,…”

Reviewer 3 Report

Review of the paper „Impacts of traffic infrastructure on urban bird communities: A review”

The article presents a review of articles on the impact of road traffic on birds. The aspect of the impact of roads on birds is much broader and has already been the subject of review papers. I suggest that the authors write in the introduction why their text does not apply to all roads and how they distinguished the aspect they dealt with. In my opinion, the concept of the work requires correction in the sense of a better indication of the cause-and-effect relationship between the objectives of the work (L80-91) and the chapters on specific elements of road infrastructure. The objectives of the work lack an indication of why to deal with particular road pollution types. The authors do not show how to specifically improve the elements of road infrastructure for the benefit of birds, i.e. which ones to reduce and which to eliminate. Please note that the organization of the work differs from the standard review paper, which is usually based on a meta-analysis of papers from Scopus and Web of Science, as well as starting with a general description of what the found papers were about, what was most often researched in them, etc.

Below, I point out other minor elements that are worth improving.

L8 – rather determinants than drivers. Biodiversity cannot be created, so it is not affected by drivers, because some always exist, but there are certain determinants that shape it.

L9-12 – there is no information linking noise and light pollution with the urbanization to which the first sentence of the abstract refers

L16, L17 – wellbeing or well-being? This is used interchangeably in the text.

L29 - birds are potentially our closest relationship to nature – I'm not sure I understand it. I think birds are the elements of nature most easily noticed by people, but that does not mean that they are the closest element.

L46-47 – „If accompanied by increasing human population size, then increasing traffic load is a further effect of urbanization.” – I don't get it, roads with heavy car traffic don't have to be in densely populated locations.

L47 – what do you mean by the term "grey infrastructure"?

L66-69 – what about citing the source of this information?

L90 – „how to make urban traffic infrastructures more liveable for birds” – please, rephrase especially changing the word “liveable”

L104 – what do you mean by “this”?

L108-110 – this is the third place in the text from the beginning to where the authors write that they are summing up the literature

L261-279 – please, add the chapter numbers you refer the reader to

Table 1 – the following article can be added: Grzędzicka E. 2020. Impact of road distance and experimental challenge of the maternal immune system on the offspring immunocompetence. Ornis Fennica 97: 101–111

L299 – addressed?

Author Response

Author's answers to Reviewer 3

Review of the paper „Impacts of traffic infrastructure on urban bird communities: A review”

The article presents a review of articles on the impact of road traffic on birds. The aspect of the impact of roads on birds is much broader and has already been the subject of review papers. I suggest that the authors write in the introduction why their text does not apply to all roads and how they distinguished the aspect they dealt with.

• Answer 1: The outstanding aspect of this work is the focus on (traffic infrastructure impacts in) urban environments. Many studies on road/transport infrastructure impacts on birds were conducted in semi-natural landscapes, but urban birds are (or are not) adapted to the stressors of the city and its traffic, and thus might respond differently to noise and light pollution, roadkill, habitat degradation and fragmentation. We therefor point out this lack of knowledge in L. 78-79, but made this clearer now by adding a sentence in L. 79-82.

In my opinion, the concept of the work requires correction in the sense of a better indication of the cause-and-effect relationship between the objectives of the work (L80-91) and the chapters on specific elements of road infrastructure.

• Answer 2: We now added links to the chapters in Aims and Methods.

The objectives of the work lack an indication of why to deal with particular road pollution types.

• Answer 3: The headers of the chapters in “Impacts” are the results of our literature search. These impacts were considered as the most relevant ones and to cover all or most aspects of what shapes urban bird biodiversity. See our changes for clarification in L.118-122.

The authors do not show how to specifically improve the elements of road infrastructure for the benefit of birds, i.e. which ones to reduce and which to eliminate.

• Answer 4: In Chapter 5, we give specific implications on how to design cities more bird-friendly, from 1) in L.477 to 6) in L.501. But, we added a line in L.487-488 (“old street trees”), and in L.500 (“turning off street lighting periodically”).

Please note that the organization of the work differs from the standard review paper, which is usually based on a meta-analysis of papers from Scopus and Web of Science, as well as starting with a general description of what the found papers were about, what was most often researched in them, etc.

• Answer 5: We added a term in L.89 to specify that we conducted a qualitative review, and added some information on how the search was conducted, in L.103 and 108-111. See also Answer 3 to Reviewer 1.

Below, I point out other minor elements that are worth improving.

L8 – rather determinants than drivers. Biodiversity cannot be created, so it is not affected by drivers, because some always exist, but there are certain determinants that shape it.

• Answer 6: Thank you. We changed the term into determinants.

L9-12 – there is no information linking noise and light pollution with the urbanization to which the first sentence of the abstract refers

• Answer 7: We link urbanization with light and noise pollution now in L.9.

L16, L17 – wellbeing or well-being? This is used interchangeably in the text.

• Answer 8: Thanks for noticing. We decided for wellbeing throughout the text.

L29 - birds are potentially our closest relationship to nature – I'm not sure I understand it. I think birds are the elements of nature most easily noticed by people, but that does not mean that they are the closest element.

• Answer 9: Among other taxa, they are certainly also easily noticed, but we decided to phrase it like this as we refer here to two previous reviews:
• Campbell et al. 2022: “their status as sensitive ecological indicators (Browder et  al. 2002; Canterbury et  al. 2000; Croci et  al. 2008), their high public value, both intrinsically and as a connection to nature (Cox and Gaston 2016), as well as being easy to detect, identify and monitor (Baillie 1991; Chace and Walsh 2006)”
• Díaz, M., Ramos, A., Concepción, E.D. 2022. Changing urban bird diversity: how to manage adaptively our closest relation with wildlife. Ecosistemas 31(1): 2354. https://doi.org/10.7818/ECOS.2354

L46-47 – „If accompanied by increasing human population size, then increasing traffic load is a further effect of urbanization.” – I don't get it, roads with heavy car traffic don't have to be in densely populated locations.

• Answer 10: They don’t have to be in densely populated locations, but we believe the causal relationship is that with the proliferation of the road network AND higher population size (“accompanied by increasing human population size”) also traffic load in these regions of increasing urbanization is increasing.

L47 – what do you mean by the term "grey infrastructure"?

• Answer 11: We added a specification of the term in L.48-49: “grey infrastructure, including all artificial structures and buildings,…”, according to the definition in the cited literature.

L66-69 – what about citing the source of this information?

• Answer 12: Changed. See L.70.

L90 – „how to make urban traffic infrastructures more liveable for birds” – please, rephrase especially changing the word “liveable”

• Answer 13: We rephrased accordingly (L. 94-98): “how urban traffic infrastructures could sustain healthier and more diverse bird communities, but also…”.

L104 – what do you mean by “this”?

• Answer 14: We rephrased for more clarity (L.109-111).

L108-110 – this is the third place in the text from the beginning to where the authors write that they are summing up the literature

• Answer 15: We changed the whole sentence (L.119-122).

L261-279 – please, add the chapter numbers you refer the reader to

• Answer 16: We added the chapter numbers. Thanks for the advice.

Table 1 – the following article can be added: Grzędzicka E. 2020. Impact of road distance and experimental challenge of the maternal immune system on the offspring immunocompetence. Ornis Fennica 97: 101–111

• Answer 17: We inserted the reference on Great and Blue Tit immune responses in relation to road distance in Table 1, as well as the chapter “4.1 Focal species”.

L299 – addressed?

• Answer 18: Yes. Thank you.