Communication through plant-borne vibrations is common among insects and other arthropods. However, plant stems and leaves provide a heterogeneous transmission channel for vibrational signals. Signals may be filtered, sometimes severely, and they may also be distorted by reflections and by the dispersive propagation of bending waves in stems. This filtering creates challenges both for the communicating animals, which will encounter an unpredictable transmission channel, and for human observers, who may wish to characterize signals at an individual, population, or species level. We used an insect model (the treehopper Umbonia crassicornis) to quantify the effect of variation in the plant substrate on vibrational signals. We recorded individuals on multiple substrates using a repeated measures design that incorporated variation within and between plant species. As expected, the frequency spectra of signals were substrate-dependent. However, other features (especially temporal features) were highly repeatable. We discuss the consequences of substrate-dependent signal variation both as a challenge for communicating animals and as a challenge for comparison of signals recorded on different substrates.
Back to Student Competition Display Presentations, Subsection Cd. Behavior and Ecology
Back to Student Competition Poster
Back to The 2002 ESA Annual Meeting and Exhibition