Jean Ross

Animals communicate with one another about activities that are central to their survival and reproduction. Many animals communicate using more than one kind of signal, including chemical, acoustic, tactile, and vibrational signals. Such “multimodal” communication is a focus of study in behavioral ecology because findings about why animals use multiple signal types vary across species, and general principles about multimodal communication are still being developed. We study why Neotropical katydids communicate using both acoustic and vibrational signals in mating contexts. We hypothesize that males produce acoustic signals to provide information to females on species identity and location of signaler. We also hypothesize that males and females produce vibrational signals to indicate their presence on the same plant as a potential mate. With three experiments, we measured the behavioral responses of katydids to acoustic and vibrational signals. We played male vibrational signals to females, male acoustic signals to females, and female vibrational signals to males. Our preliminary findings suggest some shared functions between signal types, including eliciting searching behavior and serving as localizable signals for receivers. Such redundancy may be a strategy to increase effective signaling in contexts with variable environmental noise. Our findings will help to advance understanding about why animals use multimodal communication and inform future work to determine if findings for this focal species may be generalized across closely related species.