Volume 122, Issue 4, 2 November 2020

Noise and light pollution often occur together, but their combined influence on wildlife is poorly understood.

We manipulated traffic noise and artificial night lighting exposure at Western Bluebird nests.

Relative to control nests, those exposed to noise experienced lower nest predation and produced more fledglings whereas chicks in nests exposed to light took longer to fledge and had lower body condition.

Nests exposed to noise and light together produced smaller nestlings than control nests and, for some body measurements, those exposed to either noise or light alone.