Stretching the Paradigm or Building a New? Development of a Cohesive Language for Vibrational Communication

Abstract

Before we can recruit the broader community to share our conviction of substrate-borne communication in animals as ancient, important, widely employed in vertebrates, and perhaps exclusively employed in a broad range of arthropod taxa, we first must assess our current status within the animal communication paradigm and plot a course with that focused goal in sight. We must agree on the words we use to unambiguously communicate research findings among ourselves. We can do this rapidly through consensus, or allow terminology and protocols to slowly evolve to cohesion over an extended period of time through inaction. This chapter briefly explores the current position of shared core concepts on vibrational communication within the framework of Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions and suggests that the study of substrate-borne vibrational communi- cation really can be accommodated within the dominant paradigm of animal communication. We require a reinterpretation of what ‘everyone knows to be true’ in some cases where empirical studies now have falsified previous widely held assumptions. A first step might be to develop a concerted, coordinated strategy that is widely employed by those currently studying vibrational communication. The paradigm can be stretched without being replaced, or we can forge a separate paradigm for vibrational communication. It is simply time to collectively decide on a course of action. 2.1