They’re the sopranos of the forest, so what’s silencing the gibbons’ morning chorus?

As human development and roads increasingly fragment their habitats, a study suggests traffic noise could be altering the animals’ wake-up call Dawn has broken, and the air is cool and still.

It’s at about this time that gibbons usually erupt into song, wa-oo-ing and wa-ing from the highest branches and filling the tree tops with rich melodies. But in this corner of Malaysian forest, bordered by housing and roads, the resident white-handed gibbons are quiet. All that can be heard is the hum of traffic from a nearby highway. This isn’t a rare occurrence for this…