Q31 - Street Lighting and the Timing of Dawn Birdsong
Researchers investigated if street-lighting (artificial night lighting) affected dawn and dusk singing in six common songbirds. They used 5 sets of plots of increasing light intensities (Fig.).
Average start of dawn singing relative to sunrise ‘0’ (mean ± standard error) against increasing light intensity (from 1 to 5) at sites with street-lighting (from Silva et al. 2014).
Figure 1.
Using the information and data, determine which of the statements are true or which are false.
A. Generally, street-lighting seems to have the strongest effect on the earliest birds
B. Streetlight increases interspecific competition among birds for time of singing
C. The morning pattern may be reversed at dusk
D. Rain at dawn may delay the initiation of singing
Question reproduced from IBO 2015, Theoretical Exam B, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 - attributed to the International Biology Olympiad. Open the full exam PDF · Community solutions (unofficial)