Anthropogenic noise disrupts use of vocal information about predation risk

The combined effects of elevated predation risk and anthropogenic noise on dwarf mongoose vigilance behaviour

Anthropogenic noise is a pervasive pollutant in the world's ecosystems, with numerous studies demonstrating negative physiological, developmental and behavioural impacts across taxa. However, research has tended to focus on anthropogenic noise in isolation; many species often experience this pollutant in conjunction with other anthropogenic and natural stressors. Here, we used a field experiment to investigate the combined effects of a sequential elevation in perceived predation risk followed by exposure to road noise on the vigilance behaviour of dwarf mongooses (Helogale parvula). As expected, both alarm-call playback (simulating a greater predation risk) and road-noise playback independently led to more vigilance compared to close-call and ambient-sound (control) playbacks, respectively. The two stressors had an equivalent effect on total vigilance, lending support to the risk-disturbance hypothesis. The combination of the two stressors did not, however, generate a significantly different amount of vigilance compared to road-noise playback alone. Thus, our experiment provides further evidence that anthropogenic noise can influence the vigilance-foraging trade-off but no indication of an additive or synergistic effect when combined with the natural stressor of elevated predation risk. Further investigation of combined-stressor effects is critical if we are to understand the true impacts of anthropogenic disturbances on species and communities.

Investigating the impact of anthropogenic noise on the decision-making of dwarf mongoose offspring

Anthropogenic (man-made) noise constitutes a novel and widespread pollutant which is increasing in prevalence in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, resulting in alterations of natural soundscapes. There is proliferating evidence that noise leads to maladaptive behaviour in wildlife, yet few studies have addressed the effect on mammalian parent-offspring interactions. We investigated the impact of road noise on dwarf mongoose (Helogale parvula) offspring nearest-neighbour decision-making while foraging, using a field-based playback experiment. We predicted that offspring would forage closer to groupmates, especially adult and dominant individuals, when experiencing road noise compared with ambient sound to reduce communication masking and alleviate stress. We also predicted that noise would have a reduced effect with increasing offspring age owing to reduced reliance on adult groupmates for provisioning and predator defence. However, we found that mean nearest-neighbour distance and nearest-neighbour intrinsic characteristics (age, sex and dominance status) did not differ significantly between sound treatments, and these responses did not vary significantly with focal individual age. Noise may not impact nearest-neighbour decision-making owing to habituation from chronic natural exposure; alternatively, noise could induce stress and distraction, resulting in maladaptive decision-making. Future work should aim to detangle the underlying mechanisms mediating parent-offspring interactions in conditions of anthropogenic noise.

Cognition as a neglected mediator of responses to anthropogenic noise

Anthropogenic noise is an increasingly pervasive global disturbance factor, with diverse biological effects. Yet, most studies have focused on population mean responses to noise pollution, leaving sources of among-individual differences in responses poorly understood. Blackburn et al. (2023) provide the first evidence from free-living animals that cognition might mediate individual differences in responses to noise pollution. In this commentary, we highlight the contribution of this ground-breaking study to stimulate more research on this important topic. We argue that cognition might mediate among-individual differences in the ability to cope with both masking effects and stress associated with noise pollution.

Cognition mediates response to anthropogenic noise in wild Western Australian magpies (Gmynorhina tibicen dorsalis)

Anthropogenic noise is a pollutant of growing concern, with wide-ranging effects on taxa across ecosystems. Until recently, studies investigating the effects of anthropogenic noise on animals focused primarily on population-level consequences, rather than individual-level impacts. Individual variation in response to anthropogenic noise may result from extrinsic or intrinsic factors. One such intrinsic factor, cognitive performance, varies between individuals and is hypothesised to aid behavioural response to novel stressors. Here, we combine cognitive testing, behavioural focals and playback experiments to investigate how anthropogenic noise affects the behaviour and anti-predator response of Western Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen dorsalis), and to determine whether this response is linked to cognitive performance. We found a significant population-level effect of anthropogenic noise on the foraging effort, foraging efficiency, vigilance, vocalisation rate and anti-predator response of magpies, with birds decreasing their foraging, vocalisation behaviours and anti-predator response, and increasing vigilance when loud anthropogenic noise was present. We also found that individuals varied in their response to playbacks depending on their cognitive performance, with individuals that performed better in an associative learning task maintaining their anti-predator response when an alarm call was played in anthropogenic noise. Our results add to the growing body of literature documenting the adverse effects of anthropogenic noise on wildlife and provide the first evidence for an association between individual cognitive performance and behavioural responses to anthropogenic noise.

Plateau pikas near roads are bold and silent when facing a potential predator

Human disturbance, particularly road traffic, is one of the greatest threats to wildlife. Considering the association between alerting behavior and the survival of animals, it is important to study the effects of road traffic on alerting behavior of wildlife. Previous studies assessing the short-term impact of road traffic on alerting behavior of wildlife have focused on vigilance distances. However, studies on the use of alarm calls are scarce, and it is unclear whether such behavioral responses change after repeated exposure to road traffic. We assessed the alerting behavior of plateau pikas (Ochotona curzoniae) who were near or far from roads when facing a potential predator. We found that pikas near roads exhibited shorter vigilance and tolerance distances, and produced fewer alarm calls than those relatively far away from roads. Furthermore, both vigilance and tolerance distances of plateau pikas were significantly positively correlated with the distance from the burrow to the road. Road traffic reduced antipredator responses and shaped alerting behavior; that is, pikas near roads were bolder and more silent compared to those far away from roads. Our findings suggest that increasing urbanization will have corresponding effects on animal behavior, which may have significant fitness effects in the future.

Separate and combined effects of boat noise and a live crab predator on mussel valve gape behavior

Noisy human activities at sea are changing the acoustic environment, which has been shown to affect marine mammals and fishes. Invertebrates, such as bivalves, have so far received limited attention despite their important role in the marine ecosystem. Several studies have examined the impact of sound on anti-predator behavior using simulated predators, but studies using live predators are scarce. In the current study, we examined the separate and combined effects of boat sound playback and predator cues of shore crabs (Carcinus maenas) on the behavior of mussels (Mytilus spp.). We examined the behavior of the mussels using a valve gape monitor and scored the behavior from the crabs in one of two types of predator test conditions from video footage to control for effects from potential, sound-induced variation in crab behavior. We found that mussels closed their valve gape during boat noise and with a crab in their tank, but also that the stimulus combination did not add up to an even smaller valve gape. The sound treatment did not affect the stimulus crabs, but the behavior of the crabs did affect the valve gape of the mussels. Future research is needed to examine whether these results stand in situ and whether valve closure due to sound has fitness consequences for mussels. The effects on the well-being of individual mussels from anthropogenic noise may be relevant for population dynamics in the context of pressure from other stressors, their role as an ecosystem engineer, and in the context of aquaculture.

Anthropogenic noise impairs cooperation in bottlenose dolphins

Understanding the impact of human disturbance on wildlife populations is of societal importance,1 with anthropogenic noise known to impact a range of taxa, including mammals,2 birds,3 fish,4 and invertebrates.5 While animals are known to use acoustic and other behavioral mechanisms to compensate for increasing noise at the individual level, our understanding of how noise impacts social animals working together remains limited. Here, we investigated the effect of noise on coordination between two bottlenose dolphins performing a cooperative task. We previously demonstrated that the dolphin dyad can use whistles to coordinate their behavior, working together with extreme precision.6 By equipping each dolphin with a sound-and-movement recording tag (DTAG-37) and exposing them to increasing levels of anthropogenic noise, we show that both dolphins nearly doubled their whistle durations and increased whistle amplitude in response to increasing noise. While these acoustic compensatory mechanisms are the same as those frequently used by wild cetaceans,8,9,10,11,12,13 they were insufficient to overcome the effect of noise on behavioral coordination. Indeed, cooperative task success decreased in the presence of noise, dropping from 85% during ambient noise control trials to 62.5% during the highest noise exposure. This is the first study to demonstrate in any non-human species that noise impairs communication between conspecifics performing a cooperative task. Cooperation facilitates vital functions across many taxa and our findings highlight the need to account for the impact of disturbance on functionally important group tasks in wild animal populations.

Ecological Constraints on Sexual Selection in a Human-Modified Landscape

Anthropogenic activities are changing the sensory landscape, interfering with transmission and reception of sexual signals. These changes are leading to alterations in mating behaviour with consequences to fitness. In systems where mate-finding involves long-distance signalling by one sex and approach by the other sex, the spatial distribution of signallers can have implications for male and female fitness. Spatial distribution of signallers is typically determined by an interplay of multiple factors, both ecological and evolutionary, including male competition, female choice and resources, such as calling and oviposition sites. We investigated the possible influence of resource distribution (signalling sites) on the strength and direction of sexual selection acting on false-leaf katydid Onomarchus uninotatus males, signalling in a human-modified landscape in the Western Ghats, India, a biodiversity hotspot. The landscape has changed from evergreen forests to plantations owing to human settlements. We first determined the spatial distribution of calling males and of available calling sites, which are trees of the genus Artocarpus, in the landscape. Using the information on male spacing, call transmission and hearing thresholds, the perceptual spaces of male signals were computed to understand the acoustic environment of calling males and females. It was found that both calling males and females could hear calls of males from neighbouring trees with a probability of 0.76 and 0.59, respectively. Although calling males were found to be spaced apart more than predicted by chance, significant overlap was seen in their acoustic ranges. Clustering of males enables females to easily sample multiple males, facilitating mate choice, but is detrimental to males as it increases competition for females. Using simulations, we determined the optimal spatial distributions of O. uninotatus males for female choice, and for reduction of male competition, given the signalling site distribution. The observed distribution of signallers was then compared with the hypothetical optimal distributions to examine the drivers of signaller spacing. Spacing of calling males in the field was found to be not optimal for either males or females. Resource distribution was found to limit the effectiveness of sexual selection drivers in pushing male spacing toward fitness optima of males or females.

Visual obstruction, but not moderate traffic noise, increases reliance on heterospecific alarm calls

Animals rely on both personal and social information about danger to minimize risk, yet environmental conditions constrain information. Both visual obstructions and background noise can reduce detectability of predators, which may increase reliance on social information, such as from alarm calls. Furthermore, a combination of visual and auditory constraints might greatly increase reliance on social information, because the loss of information from one source cannot be compensated by the other. Testing these possibilities requires manipulating personal information while broadcasting alarm calls. We therefore experimentally tested the effects of a visual barrier, traffic noise, and their combination on the response of Australian magpies, Cracticus tibicen, to heterospecific alarm calls. The barrier blocked only visual cues, while playback of moderate traffic noise could mask subtle acoustic cues of danger, such as of a predator’s movement, but not the alarm-call playback. We predicted that response to alarm calls would increase with either visual or acoustic constraint, and that there would be a disproportionate response when both were present. As predicted, individuals responded more strongly to alarm calls when there was a visual barrier. However, moderate traffic noise did not affect responses, and the effect of the visual barrier was not greater during traffic-noise playback. We conclude that a reduction of personal, visual information led to a greater reliance on social information from alarm calls, confirming indirect evidence from other species. The absence of a traffic-noise effect could be because in Australian magpies hearing subtle cues is less important than vision in detecting predators.

Long-term noise pollution affects seedling recruitment and community composition, with negative effects persisting after removal

Noise pollution can affect species' behaviours and distributions and may hold significant consequences for natural communities. While several studies have researched short-term effects of noise, no long-term research has examined whether observed patterns persist or if community recovery can occur. We used a long-term study system in New Mexico to examine the effects of continuous natural gas well noise exposure on seedling recruitment of foundational tree species (Pinus edulis, Juniperus osteosperma) and vegetation diversity. First, we examined seedling recruitment and vegetation diversity at plots where current noise levels have persisted for greater than 15 years. We then examined recruitment and diversity on plots where noise sources were recently removed or added. We found support for long-term negative effects of noise on tree seedling recruitment, evenness of woody plants and increasingly dissimilar vegetation communities with differences in noise levels. Furthermore, seedling recruitment and plant community composition did not recover following noise removal, possibly due in part to a lag in recovery among animals that disperse and pollinate plants. Our results add to the limited evidence that noise has cascading ecological effects. Moreover, these effects may be long lasting and noise removal may not lead to immediate recovery.

Sensory disruption and sensory inequities in the Anthropocene

Anthropogenic disruptions to animal sensory ecology are as old as our species. But what about the effect on human sensory ecology? Human sensory dysfunction is increasing globally at great economic and health costs (mental, physical, and social). Contemporary sensory problems are directly tied to human behavioral changes and activity as well as anthropogenic pollution. The evolutionary sensory ecology and anthropogenic disruptions to three human senses (vision, audition, olfaction) are examined along with the economic and health costs of functionally reduced senses and demographic risk factors contributing to impairment. The primary goals of the paper are (a) to sew an evolutionary and ecological thread through clinical narratives on sensory dysfunction that highlights the impact of the built environment on the senses, and (b) to highlight structural, demographic, and environmental injustices that create sensory inequities in risk and that promote health disparities.

Anthropogenic noise disrupts mate choice behaviors in female Gryllus bimaculatus

By assessing the sexual signals produced by conspecifics, individuals can make informed decisions on the best choice of mate, which can lead to reproductive fitness benefits. However, these communication systems are often vulnerable to disruption by conflicting with stimuli present in the environment. Anthropogenic noise may act as one such disruptive stimulus, leading to inefficient mate choice decisions and, thus, reductions to an animal’s fitness. In this study, the mate choice behaviors of female Gryllus bimaculatus were tested when presented with artificial male courtship songs of differing “quality” under different acoustic conditions. In ambient noise conditions, females significantly preferred mates paired with higher-quality songs, indicated by increased mating rates and reduced latency to mate. However, this mate selection pattern was disrupted in both traffic and white noise conditions. Additionally, “high-quality” courtship songs had an increased mounting latency in traffic and white noise conditions, when compared to ambient noise conditions. Making nonoptimal mating decisions, such as the ones seen here, can lead to deleterious fitness consequences, alter population dynamics, and weaken sexual selection, unless individuals adapt to cope with anthropogenic interference.

Changes in the social behavior of urban animals: more aggression or tolerance?

Behavioral traits play a major role in successful adaptation of wildlife to urban conditions. However, there are few studies showing how urban conditions affect the social behavior of urban animals during their direct encounters. It is generally believed that the higher density of urban populations translates into increased aggression between individuals. In this paper, using a camera-trap method, we compared the character of direct encounters in urban and non-urban populations of the striped field mouse Apodemus agrarius (Pallas, 1771), a species known as an urban adapter. We confirmed the thesis that urbanization affects the social behavior and urban and rural populations differ from each other. Urban animals are less likely to avoid close contact with each other and are more likely to show tolerant behavior. They also have a lower tendency towards monopolization of food resources. The behavior of urban animals varies depending on the time of day: in the daytime, animals are more vigilant and less tolerant than at night. Our results indicate that, in the case of the species studied, behavioral adaptation to urban life is based on increasing tolerance rather than aggression in social relations. However, the studied urban adapter retains the high plasticity of social behavior revealed even in the circadian cycle. The observation that tolerance rather than aggression may predominate in urban populations is a new finding, while most studies suggest an increase in aggression in urban animals. This opens an avenue for formulating new hypotheses regarding the social behavior of urban adapters.

Direct and indirect effects of noise pollution alter biological communities in and near noise-exposed environments

Noise pollution is pervasive across every ecosystem on Earth. Although decades of research have documented a variety of negative impacts of noise to organisms, key gaps remain, such as how noise affects different taxa within a biological community and how effects of noise propagate across space. We experimentally applied traffic noise pollution to multiple roadless areas and quantified the impacts of noise on birds, grasshoppers and odonates. We show that acoustically oriented birds have reduced species richness and abundance and different community compositions in experimentally noise-exposed areas relative to comparable quiet locations. We also found both acoustically oriented grasshoppers and odonates without acoustic receptors to have reduced species richness and/or abundance in relatively quiet areas that abut noise-exposed areas. These results suggest that noise pollution not only affects acoustically oriented animals, but that noise may reverberate through biological communities through indirect effects to those with no clear links to the acoustic realm, even in adjacent quiet environments.

Intrapopulation variation in the behavioral responses of dwarf mongooses to anthropogenic noise

Anthropogenic noise is an increasingly widespread pollutant, with a rapidly burgeoning literature demonstrating impacts on humans and other animals. However, most studies have simply considered if there is an effect of noise, examining the overall cohort response. Although substantial evidence exists for intraspecific variation in responses to other anthropogenic disturbances, this possibility has received relatively little experimental attention with respect to noise. Here, we used field-based playbacks with dwarf mongooses (Helogale parvula) to test how traffic noise affects vigilance behavior and to examine potential variation between individuals of different age class, sex, and dominance status. Foragers exhibited a stronger immediate reaction and increased their subsequent vigilance (both that on the ground and as a sentinel) in response to traffic-noise playback compared with ambient-sound playback. Traffic-noise playback also resulted in sentinels conducting longer bouts and being more likely to change post height or location than in ambient-sound playback. Moreover, there was evidence of variation in noise responses with respect to age class and dominance status but not sex. In traffic noise, foraging pups were more likely to flee and were slower to resume foraging than adults; they also tended to increase their vigilance more than adults. Dominants were more likely than subordinates to move post during sentinel bouts conducted in traffic-noise trials. Our findings suggest that the vigilance–foraging trade-off is affected by traffic noise but that individuals differ in how they respond. Future work should, therefore, consider intrapopulation response variation to understand fully the population-wide effects of this global pollutant.

Vocal characteristics of prairie dog alarm calls across an urban noise gradient

Increasing anthropogenic noise is having a global impact on wildlife, particularly due to the masking of crucial acoustical communication. However, there have been few studies examining the impacts of noise exposure on communication in free-ranging terrestrial mammals. We studied alarm calls of black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) across an urban gradient to explore vocal adjustment relative to different levels of noise exposure. There was no change in the frequency 5%, peak frequency, or duration of the alarm calls across the noise gradient. However, the minimum frequency—a commonly used, yet potentially compromised metric—did indeed show a positive relationship with noise exposure. We suspect this is a result of masking of observable call properties by noise, rather than behavioral adjustment. In addition, the proximity of conspecifics and the distance to the perceived threat (observer) did affect the frequency 5% of alarm calls. These results reveal that prairie dogs do not appear to be adjusting their alarm calls in noisy environments but likely do in relation to their social context and the proximity of a predatory threat. Anthropogenic noise can elicit a range of behavioral and physiological responses across taxa, but elucidating the specific mechanisms driving these responses can be challenging, particularly as these are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Our research sheds light on how prairie dogs appear to respond to noise as a source of increased risk, rather than as a distraction or through acoustical masking as shown in other commonly studied species (e.g., fish, songbirds, marine mammals).

Eavesdropping grey squirrels infer safety from bird chatter

When multiple species are vulnerable to a common set of predators, it is advantageous for individuals to recognize information about the environment provided by other species. Eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) and other small mammals have been shown to exploit heterospecific alarm calls as indicators of danger. However, many species-especially birds-emit non-alarm auditory cues such as contact calls when perceived predator threat is low, and such public information may serve as cues of safety to eavesdroppers. We tested the hypothesis that eavesdropping gray squirrels respond to "bird chatter" (contact calls emitted by multiple individuals when not under threat of predation) as a measure of safety. We compared vigilance behavior of free-ranging squirrels in the presence of playbacks of bird chatter vs non-masking ambient background noise lacking chatter after priming them with a playback recording of a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) call. Squirrels responded to the hawk call playbacks by significantly increasing the proportion of time they spent engaged in vigilance behaviors and the number of times they looked up during otherwise non-vigilance behaviors, indicating that they perceived elevated predation threat prior to the playbacks of chatter or ambient noise. Following the hawk playback, squirrels exposed to the chatter treatment engaged in significantly lower levels of vigilance behavior (i.e., standing, freezing, fleeing, looking up) and the decay in vigilance behaviors was more rapid than in squirrels exposed to the ambient noise treatment, suggesting squirrels use information contained in bird chatter as a cue of safety. These findings suggest that eastern gray squirrels eavesdrop on non-alarm auditory cues as indicators of safety and adjust their vigilance level in accordance with the vigilance level of other species that share the same predators.

Background noise disrupts host-parasitoid interactions

The soundscape serves as a backdrop for acoustic signals dispatched within and among species, spanning mate attraction to parasite host detection. Elevated background sound levels from human-made and natural sources may interfere with the reception of acoustic signals and alter species interactions and whole ecological communities. We investigated whether background noise influences the ability of the obligate parasitoid Ormia ochracea to locate its host, the variable field cricket (Gryllus lineaticeps). As O. ochracea use auditory cues to locate their hosts, we hypothesized that higher background noise levels would mask or distract flies from cricket calls and result in a decreased ability to detect and navigate to hosts. We used a field manipulation where fly traps baited with playback of male cricket advertisement calls were exposed to a gradient of experimental traffic and ocean surf noise. We found that increases in noise amplitude caused a significant decline in O. ochracea caught, suggesting that background noise can influence parasitoid-host interactions and potentially benefit hosts. As human-caused sensory pollution increases globally, soundscapes may influence the evolution of tightly co-evolved host-parasitoid relationships. Future work should investigate whether female cricket phonotaxis towards males is similarly affected by noise levels.

Anthropogenic noise affects male house wren response to but not detection of territorial intruders

Anthropogenic noise decreases signal active space, or the area over which male bird song can be detected in the environment. For territorial males, noise may make it more difficult to detect and assess territorial challenges, which in turn may increase defense costs and influence whether males maintain territory ownership. We tested the hypothesis that noise affects the ability of male house wrens (Troglodytes aedon) near active nests to detect intruders and alters responses to them. We broadcast pre-recorded male song and pink noise on territories to simulate intrusions with and without noise, as well as to noise alone. We measured detection by how long males took to sing or approach the speaker after the start of a playback. To measure whether playbacks changed male behavior, we compared their vocal responses before and during treatments, as well as compared mean vocal responses and the number of flyovers and attacks on the speaker during treatments. Noise did not affect a male’s ability to detect an intruder on his territory. Males altered their responses to simulated intruders with and without noise compared to the noise-only treatment by singing longer songs at faster rates. Males increased peak frequency of songs during intrusions without noise compared to noise-only treatments, but frequency during intruder plus noise treatments did not differ from either. When confronting simulated intruders in noise, males increased the number of attacks on the speaker compared to intruders without noise, possibly because they were less able to assess intruders via songs and relied on close encounters for information. Although noise did not affect intruder detection, noise affected some aspects of singing and aggressive responses, which may be related to the challenge of discriminating and assessing territorial threats under elevated noise.

Effects of ambient noise on zebra finch vigilance and foraging efficiency

Ambient noise can affect the availability of acoustic information to animals, altering both foraging and vigilance behaviour. Using captive zebra finches Taeniopygia guttata, we examined the effect of ambient broadband noise on foraging decisions. Birds were given a choice between foraging in a quiet area where conspecific calls could be heard or a noisy area where these calls would be masked. Birds foraging in noisy areas spent a significantly more time vigilant than those in quiet areas, resulting in less efficient foraging. Despite this there was no significant difference in the amount of time spent in the two noise regimes. However there did appear a preference for initially choosing quiet patches during individuals’ second trial. These results emphasise how masking noise can influence the foraging and anti-predation behaviour of animals, which is particularly relevant as anthropogenic noise becomes increasingly prevalent in the natural world.

Developmental experience with anthropogenic noise hinders adult mate location in an acoustically signalling invertebrate

Phenotypic plasticity facilitates survival and reproduction in rapidly changing and novel environments. Traffic noise spectrally overlaps with (i.e. masks) the sounds used by many acoustically signalling organisms to locate and secure mates. To determine if pre-reproductive exposure to noise improves adult performance in noisy environments, we reared field crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus) in one of three noise environments: masking traffic noise, traffic noise from which frequencies that spectrally overlap with the crickets' song were removed (non-masking), or silence. At reproductive maturity, we tested female mate location ability under one of the same three acoustic conditions. We found that exposure to noise during rearing hindered female location of mates, regardless of the acoustic environment at testing. Females reared in masking noise took 80% longer than females reared in silence to locate a simulated singing male who was less than 1 m away. Impaired mate location ability can be added to a growing list of fitness costs associated with anthropogenic noise, alongside reductions in pairing success, nesting success and offspring survival.

Anthropogenic noise alters dwarf mongoose responses to heterospecific alarm calls

Anthropogenic noise is an evolutionarily novel and widespread pollutant in both terrestrial and aquatic habitats. Despite increasing evidence that the additional noise generated by human activities can affect vocal communication, the majority of research has focused on the use of conspecific acoustic information, especially sexual signals. Many animals are known to eavesdrop on the alarm calls produced by other species, enhancing their likelihood of avoiding predation, but how this use of heterospecific information is affected by anthropogenic noise has received little empirical attention. Here, we use two field-based playback experiments on a habituated wild population of dwarf mongooses (Helogale parvula) to determine how anthropogenic noise influences the response of foragers to heterospecific alarm calls. We begin by demonstrating that dwarf mongooses respond appropriately to the alarm calls of sympatric chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) and tree squirrels (Paraxerus cepapi); fleeing only to the latter. We then show that mongoose foragers are less likely to exhibit this flee response to tree squirrel alarm calls during road-noise playback compared to ambient-sound playback. One explanation for the change in response is that noise-induced distraction or stress result in maladaptive behaviour. However, further analysis revealed that road-noise playback results in increased vigilance and that mongooses showing the greatest vigilance increase are those that do not subsequently exhibit a flee response to the alarm call. These individuals may therefore be acting appropriately: if the greater gathering of personal information indicates the absence of an actual predator despite an alarm call, the need to undertake costly fleeing behaviour can be avoided. Either way, our study indicates the potential for anthropogenic noise to interfere with the use of acoustic information from other species, and suggests the importance of considering how heterospecific networks are affected by this global pollutant.