Effects of Anthropogenic Noise on Animals by Hans Slabbekoorn & Robert J. Dooling & Arthur N. Popper & Richard R. Fay

Author:Hans Slabbekoorn & Robert J. Dooling & Arthur N. Popper & Richard R. Fay
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781493985746
Publisher: Springer New York

6.6.3 Physical Damage to the Auditory System

Only a few studies have examined physical effects on the auditory system after exposure to intense sounds. Enger (1981) demonstrated that exposure to such sounds may result in damage to the sensory hair cells in the ears of the goldfish. Subsequently, Hastings et al. (1996) showed some damage to hair cells of the goldfish lagena (one of the three otolithic end organs of the ear) but only when the fish were kept alive for several days postexposure.

Effects of impulsive sounds on the ear give ambiguous results, very likely as a result of using different species and sources. The first study examining the effects of impulsive sounds on the ear showed that exposure to multiple airgun shots over several hours produced damage to the sensory epithelia of the saccule, the major auditory end organ of the ear, in caged pink snapper (Pagrus auratus; McCauley et al. 2003). A subsequent study showed no damage to the ears of three fish species in the Mackenzie River Delta: northern pike (Esox lucius), broad whitefish (Coregonus nasus), and lake chub (Couesius plumbeus; Popper et al. 2005), after exposure to 5 or 20 airgun shots. Although some species showed TTS, there was no apparent damage to nonauditory (Popper et al. 2005) or auditory (Song et al. 2008) tissues.

Exposure of both hybrid striped bass (Morone sp.) and Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) to impulsive sounds at 210-216 dB re 1 μPa2·s cumulative SEL (SELcum) showed that damage to sensory hair cells, if it occurs at all, only shows up at SELs that are somewhat higher than levels that will result in damage to nonauditory tissues (Casper et al. 2013b). The hypothesis is that damage as a result of exposure to impulsive sounds in the acoustic far field (which is likely to be primarily a pressure signal) results from rapid and high-amplitude motion of the walls of the swim bladder and that the tissues showing greatest damage are those closest to that organ.

The only study to date that has correlated hair cell loss in a fish ear and hearing effects was done with goldfish. This study showed that exposure to long-duration white noise resulted in extensive loss of sensory cells and that this was closely correlated with decreased hearing sensitivity (Smith et al. 2006). Over several days, hearing sensitivity returned to about normal, and this was correlated with the start of replacement of sensory cells of the ear.

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