for: sensory ecology, conservation biology, adjacency, adjacency - sensory ecology - conservation biology, anthropogenic sensory pollutants

title: Why conservation biology can benefit from sensory ecology

• Global expansion of human activities is associated with the introduction of novel stimuli, such as
  • anthropogenic noise,
  • artificial lights and
  • chemical agents.
• Progress in documenting the ecological effects of sensory pollutants is weakened by sparse knowledge of the mechanisms underlying these effects.
• This severely limits our capacity to devise mitigation measures.
• Here,we integrate knowledge of animal
  • sensory ecology,
  • physiology and
  • life history
• to articulate three perceptual mechanisms—
  • masking,
  • distracting and
  • misleading
• that clearly explain how and why anthropogenic sensory pollutants impact organisms.
• We then
  • link these three mechanisms to ecological consequences and
  • discuss their implications for conservation.
• We argue that this framework can reveal the presence of ‘sensory danger zones’, hotspots of conservation concern
  • where sensory pollutants overlap in space and time with an organism’s activity, and
  • foster development of strategic interventions to mitigate the impact of sensory pollutants.
• Future research that applies this framework will provide critical insight to preserve the natural sensory world.