Abstract
Airborne sound and substrate vibrations are communication channels inextricably linked through commonalities in signal production, propagation, and reception. Bimodal recordings of acoustic calls reveal that signal components in one modality often excite energy in the other and can thus be propagated to receivers via either channel. While studies of communication via airborne sound and substrate vibrations have proceeded largely independently of one another, the frequency at which these modalities co-occur and the number of receivers sensitive to both kinds of energy underscore the broad potential importance of interactions between the two communication channels. Nevertheless, only a handful of species are known to use bimodal acoustic signals. This chapter summarizes what is known about the interactions between airborne and substrate-borne signal components, discusses how interactions between modalities may shape the evolution of bimodal acoustic signals, and identifies outstanding issues in the field along with promising avenues for future study.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank all those who have generously contributed to this chapter through discussions and logistical support. I am grateful to Rex Cocroft for his encouragement and for helping to shape the manuscript with his advice and comments. I would like to thank Peggy Hill for additional comments. I would also like to thank Karen Warkentin, John Christy, Rachel Page, and Alex Trillo for helping to develop many of the ideas presented here. Additional gratitude goes to Karen Warkentin and Mark Bee for the generous use of their equipment, Reinhard Lakes-Harlan for the use of his cicada recordings, and Tim Polnaszek for help in obtaining jay call recordings.
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Caldwell, M.S. (2014). Interactions Between Airborne Sound and Substrate Vibration in Animal Communication. In: Cocroft, R., Gogala, M., Hill, P., Wessel, A. (eds) Studying Vibrational Communication. Animal Signals and Communication, vol 3. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43607-3_6
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