Terrestrial Megafauna Response to Drone Noise Levels in Ex Situ Areas
, Serge A. Wich 3 and José Domingo Rodríguez-Teijeiro 4Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I find this work very interesting and extremely necessary, as the use of drones is increasing in environmental research, particularly in analyzing the population size of many animals. The paper is well-written and well-prepared. It can be found few minor editorial flaws, e.g.
in lines 32 or 39, the order of cited literature items should be changed.
I miss units in the figures e.g. in Fig. 2 I suggest adding Hz and dB.
As for substantive comments, I basically have two:
1. I am missing a broader discussion of the conditions and limitations caused by conducting this experiment in a zoo? If it had been conducted under natural conditions might the results have been different? Could the animals' habituation to different sounds make a difference?
2. I miss at least a brief reference to the research conducted in Antarctica and the recommendations used there, as well as the experiments conducted on the effects of drones on animal behavior in Antarctica. I don't want to suggest any position to the authors, but they could devote at least a short paragraph to this topic.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for the suggestions for revision. Below are the responses to the requested revisions:
in lines 32 or 39, the order of cited literature items should be changed.
Answer = We change the order of citations
I miss units in the figures e.g. in Fig. 2 I suggest adding Hz and dB
Answer = We have added the units kHz and dB in figures 2 and 3.
I am missing a broader discussion of the conditions and limitations caused by conducting this experiment in a zoo? If it had been conducted under natural conditions might the results have been different? Could the animals' habituation to different sounds make a difference?
Answer = We have added this information between lines 430-467
I miss at least a brief reference to the research conducted in Antarctica and the recommendations used there, as well as the experiments conducted on the effects of drones on animal behavior in Antarctica. I don't want to suggest any position to the authors, but they could devote at least a short paragraph to this topic.
Answer = We have added this information between lines 458-467
Reviewer 2 Report
This work is very well done. I only noticed one problem. It is not clear what are the units in Fig. 2 and some of the other figures. Is this a plot of acoustic levels up to 20 Hz? If so, it would seem that those frequencies would not be audible to most of the animals involved in the study. Drones produce noise at much higher frequencies. So it seems that either (1) I am misinterpreting the figure or (2) the figure is of little relevance to the study.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for the suggestions for revision. Below are the responses to the requested revisions:
This work is very well done. I only noticed one problem. It is not clear what are the units in Fig. 2 and some of the other figures. Is this a plot of acoustic levels up to 20 Hz? If so, it would seem that those frequencies would not be audible to most of the animals involved in the study. Drones produce noise at much higher frequencies. So it seems that either (1) I am misinterpreting the figure or (2) the figure is of little relevance to the study.
Answer = We have added the units kHz and dB in figures 2 and 3.
Figures 2 and 3 measure the sound intensity (dB) in the different frequency bands. In figure 2 we see the 36 frequency bands that go from 0.0063 kHz to 20kHz. In each of these 36 frequency bands the sound is heard at a certain intensity (dB) by the species. Sounds in the high frequencies, above 2.5 kHz are in fact required to have a very high dB to be heard by the species studied. But felines were an example of those that might have been affected by dBs at high frequencies. The drones indeed produce sounds at high frequencies, but in these graphs considering the altitude of the drones where there was behavioral change in each species, the intensity (dB) of the drone noise at high frequencies that reached the animals was very low, that’s why the low dB values at high frequencies within the graphs.
