15/09/2022
But the natural soundscape is “one component of the niche that we’ve been ignoring,” says Gail Patricelli, an ecologist at the University of California, Davis who was not involved in the study. The phantom rivers experiment suggests we shouldn’t, she says.
Gomes and his team hauled about 3.5 metric tons of speakers, solar panels and other equipment into the countryside. Though they carried most of this gear on their backs, the researchers had to call on a mule train when an access road flooded during the first summer. At 60 study sites near streams, the researchers broadcast white water noise at different volumes and frequencies, or pitches, creating the auditory illusion of rushing rivers.
