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Prolonged exposure to anthropogenic noise (sounds from human sources like traffic or mining) can affect animals, as Erin P. Walsh and colleagues found in a 2017 study of hermit crabs. Researchers conducted a meta-analysis of studies of how such noise affects animals and found that, for every study, relevant traits or behaviors of the animals were observably different between the exposed group and the otherwise similar but unexposed group. Although, on average, studies of arthropods showed larger differences than studies of birds did, for every class of animals examined, there were individual studies showing differences well above the average for arthropods. Therefore, the results of the meta-analysis suggest that,