Abstract
The persisting growth of wireless telecommunication technology causes increased electrosmog. Exposure to wide-ranging radiofrequency electromagnetic fields is thought to be a concern for all living organism across the globe. Several studies have been conducted to investigate the effects of electromagnetic radiation on various organisms, including the risk of electromagnetic radiation on birds, but the results have been inconclusive. Here, we investigated if there is any impact of electromagnetic radiation on the abundance and habitat use of sympatric House Sparrow and Tree Sparrow in Guwahati City, India. In addition, we did a comparative analysis of previous work that had been conducted on the possible effects of EMR on wild birds in field conditions. We collected sparrow abundance in selected urbanized habitats temporally over a period of two years in 45 locations and spatially covering 168 locations in the eastern part of Guwahati City. Point counts were carried out, and successively we measured the electromagnetic radiation along with other ecological factors that could influence the habitat usage of the species. It was observed that ecological factors had a major role in explaining the fine-scale habitat use of sparrows in Guwahati, but electromagnetic radiation had no impact. We found that House Sparrows had a quadratic relationship and Tree sparrows had a negative association with increasing urbanization. Studies carried out in the past on the impacts of electromagnetic radiation on birds outside the lab conditions had not considered other ecological factors, which could also influence the life history needs of the species. Therefore, future studies on the impact of EMR must also include species specific requirements. Based on our current knowledge, we can infer that low levels of EMR in the field (in urban settings) in cities around the globe are unable to induce thermal effects and so have no impact on sparrows and associated urban avifauna.
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The dataset and R-code can be obtained on a request from the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgements
We are thankful to Aaranyak for providing the necessary facilities during the field surveys. We would like to thank Qamar Qureshi, Sutirtha Dutta, Sonali Ghosh and Ranjana Pal of Wildlife Institute of India in overall preparation of the manuscript. We would also like to thank Dr. Asad R Rahmani for his valuable comments and suggestion on the previous version of the manuscript. We would also like to thank Samrat Sengupta (Debraj Roy College, Golaghat) for helping with EMR detector. We are grateful to Minarul Haque, Nilutpal Mahnta for their help during the fieldwork. We would also like to thank two anonymous reviewer and editor for their insightful comments on the manuscript.
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The first author received fund from Aaranyk-rufford seed grant to carry out the field activity.
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Conceptualization: [Anukul Nath, Hilloljyoti Singha, Bibhuti P Lahkar]; Methodology: [Anukul Nath, Hilloljyoti Singha]; Formal analysis and investigation: [Anukul Nath, Hilloljyoti Singha]; Writing—original draft preparation: [Anukul Nath]; Writing—review and editing: [Hilloljyoti Singha, Bibhuti P Lahkar]; Supervision: [Hilloljyoti Singha, Bibhuti P Lahkar].
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Manuscript title: Correlation does not imply causation: decline of house sparrow overshadowed by electromagnetic radiation. The authors whose names are listed immediately below certify that they have NO affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest (such as honoraria; educational grants; participation in speakers’ bureaus; membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest; and expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements), or nonfinancial interest (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs) in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. Author names: Anukul Nath, Hilloljyoti Singha, Bibhuti P Lahkar.
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Nath, A., Singha, H. & Lahkar, B.P. Correlation does not imply causation: decline of house sparrow overshadowed by electromagnetic radiation. Urban Ecosyst 25, 1279–1295 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-022-01227-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-022-01227-6