In Vibroscape: discovering an overlooked world of vibrational communication, we explore vibrational communication, which is used by over 240.000 animal species, spanning invertebrates and vertebrates. Substrate vibrations are perceived by the majority of animals and the vibroscape provides crucial information, not only for animals relying on them in communication, but also to those only eavesdropping on other species and exploiting their signals.
The main goals of the proposed study are (1) to determine the ecological context in which vibrational signalling occurs in the field in order to obtain relevant information on the natural vibroscape and species interactions within vibrational communities, (2) to predict which registered vibroscape components are detected by insect receivers, (3) to develop approaches for automated detection and classification of vibrational signals for vibroscape analyses, and (4) to provide a framework on which guidelines for comparative vibroscape studies can be designed.
Researches
We are pursuing the following research goals:
- identify vibrational events that correspond to communication signals
- identify species-specific vibrational signals
- determine whether VSTs appear in sequences