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Vibration and animal communication: A review

American Zoologist, Nov 2001 by Hill, Peggy S M

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Workers of the leaf-cutter ant genus Atta produce both airborne and vibration components of a stridulation sound using a file-- and-scraper mechanism (Masters et al., 1983). When they are buried by a cave-in nest-mates do not respond to the airborne sound but rescue their buried relatives in response to the substrate vibration (Mark], 1967). The low frequency component of the stridulation output is emphasized underground, where radiation conditions are much better than in air for an animal of this size (Michelsen et al., 1982; Masters et al., 1983). Recent studies have shown that stridulations are also initiated to recruit workers to an attractive food source, and that these vibrations are transferred to the substrate through the ant's head (Roces et al., 1993). Since the vibrations also mechanically aid the cutting process, it is thought that communication in this instance of foraging is a secondary effect for a process that first increasd efficiency in food handling (Tautz et al., 1995).

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Carpenter ants of the genus Camponotus drum with the mandibles and gasters to transmit a vibration signal over much longer distances than leaf-cutter ants (Fuchs, 1976). Responses to the vibrations are context-related and include more aggressive defense of the nest, as well as more rapid removal of dependent nest-mates (Fuchs, 1976). Holldobler (1999) suggests that the drumming serves to elicit modulations in behavior by "influencing the motivational state of the receiver." In the genus Aphaen-- ogaster of the southwestern United States, substrate vibration serves to amplify the pheromone signal first perceived by recruits, and they rush to move and conceal a food item (Holldobler, 1999).

One of the most unusual associations is that between butterfly caterpillars and ants that protect them from predators (DeVries, 1990). Caterpillars produce secretions rich in amino acids and sugars that feed the ants, but they appear to attract the ants with vibration signals. DeVries (1990) suggests that the very common communication pathway known to ants is exploited by butterfly caterpillars and, based on comparative studies, appears to have evolved at least three separate times in related lineages.

Vibrations serve termites in pathogen alarm behavior. Termites bang their heads and produce substrate-borne vibrations as an alarm signal in response to a disturbance of the nest by predators (e.g., Howse, 1964; Kirchner et al., 1994). Young dampwood termites, Zootermopsis angusticollis, also produce a vibratory alarm in response to exposure to spores of a fungal pathogen. Unlike the disturbance alarm signal, the pathogen alarm induces nestmates to flee rather than move toward the stimulus source. Like a doomed human worker exposed to lethal radiation, the spore-exposed individual remains in place and signals to nestmates at a rate dependent on the concentration of spores encountered (Rosengaus et al., 1999).

My own interest in vibration was initially generated as I tried to manipulate male prairie mole crickets (Gryllotalpa major) in their burrows with airborne signals. Males were sensitive to vibrations in the soil set up by footfalls, but they completely ignored airborne signals. In G. major, the vibrations are a component of the sexual advertisement call used to attract flying females and may represent bimodal communication important in male-male spacing (Hill and Shadley, 1997). This behavior, where vibrations targeting males are initiated along with an airborne sexual advertisement call targeting females, has a remarkable analog in the white-lipped frog, Leptodactylus albilabris (Lewis and Narins, 1985). Male bushcrickets (Tettigonia cantans) produce both sound and vibration as they call from plant stems, but the vibration, mainly in the form of bending waves, seems to play a role in mate location rather than competition with other males (Keuper and KOhne, 1983). These vibrations may also serve to reinforce acoustic signals (Latimer and Schatral, 1983).

Vibration and animal communication: A review

American Zoologist, Nov 2001 by Hill, Peggy S M

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