Photo credit: Pascal Ingelrest
by Arline L. Bronzaft, Ph.D., Board of Directors, GrowNYC, Co-founder, The Quiet Coalition, and Honorary Chair, Quiet American Skies
Humans share this planet with other species, and the noise that we create is not only harmful to our mental and physical health but also causes harm to other species. An article in Phys.org by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya discusses the UPC’s study on the harm that sea noise has on invertebrates. Sound is essential to the survival of many sea invertebrates and this study, which has reviewed many other studies investigating the effect of noise on marine life, has concluded that crabs, mollusks, squid, and worms are being harmed by human operations in the seas that generate noise.
Noise pollution in our seas can cause injury and death to some of the invertebrates as well as delay the development and hatching of their eggs, reduce their growth, and even make some invertebrates aggressive. The article notes that invertebrates also “provide major ecosystem functions such as water filtering, habitat creation, organic matter processing and nutrient recycling.” Thus, entire ecosystems are being adversely affected by noise.
While the article suggests that more research is needed to get a better understanding of how marine invertebrates are affected by noise, I would conclude that the information it provides enables us to state affirmatively that noise from human operations is harming sea invertebrates. Thus, actions should be taken now to address this serious problem.
