Physical Aspects of Vibrational Communication

Abstract

Thirty years ago, we found that insect vibrational songs may travel as bending waves through the stems of various plants. It was already known that other kinds of waves were involved when ants or scorpions detect vibrations through soil or sand, and we anticipated that several other kinds of waves would be involved in different substrates. This review summarizes the progress made since our study and points out some problems that need scrutiny: the energetic costs of communicating through different substrates, how vibrations propagate in plants and soils, discrimination between attenuations due to the substrate and those due to geometric spreading, and whether we can be sure that we record the kinds of waves sensed by the animals.