Many insects use vibratory communication for mate finding and in prey-predator interactions on plants. The vibrations produced are often highly characteristic of the species and narrow-banded, with high frequencies up to several kHz. These waves are usually assumed to be of the bending type, as they show a typical dispersive behavior. Here we test this assumption using a prototype of two laser doppler vibrometers and a wavelets analysis of impact like signals on a juncus stem. We extend the frequency range over which the assumption applies and show the limit of the Bernoulli assumption for bending waves on plant stems. We discuss our findings in terms of the trade-off faced by small insects communicating on plants, in particular the problem of the integrity of the signals.
Keywords: sensory ecology, plant biomechanics
The ESA 2001 Annual Meeting - 2001: An Entomological Odyssey of ESA