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Communication Through Plants in a Narrow Frequency Window

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Studying Vibrational Communication

Part of the book series: Animal Signals and Communication ((ANISIGCOM,volume 3))

Abstract

Different vibration-producing mechanisms determine frequency characteristics of insect communication signals transmitted through plants. Plant-dwelling stinkbugs (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae) communicate with the substrate-borne component of the vibratory emissions produced by tremulation of the whole body, tremulation of the abdomen or wings, and percussion. The main characteristics of signals produced by the mechanisms mentioned are their dominant component around 100 Hz, a different number of higher harmonics generally not exceeding 1,000 Hz and different degrees of frequency modulation. Higher-frequency components of the low-amplitude percussion signals are strongly attenuated during transmission through herbaceous plants. Stinkbug non-species-specific, low-frequency and narrow-band signal characteristics are tuned with plants as their main communication media. Herbaceous plants act as low-pass filters that optimally transmit signals of dominant frequency around 100 Hz and attenuate those above 600 Hz. Narrow-band low-frequency stinkbug vibratory signals are transmitted through stems with regularly repeated peaks of velocity minima and maxima caused by resonance. The stinkbug sensory system with underlying neuronal network effectively codes the inner frequency structure of signals produced by different mechanisms. Communication through a narrow-band frequency range on the one hand efficiently increases signal-to-noise ratio but on the other hand does not allow evolution of signals with species-specific frequency character.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology, National Institute of Biology, Večna pot 111, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Andrej Čokl, Maja Zorović, Alenka Žunič Kosi, Nataša Stritih & Meta Virant-Doberlet

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  1. Andrej Čokl
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  2. Maja Zorović
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  3. Alenka Žunič Kosi
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  4. Nataša Stritih
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  5. Meta Virant-Doberlet
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Correspondence to Andrej Čokl .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri, USA

    Reginald B. Cocroft

  2. Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Matija Gogala

  3. Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA

    Peggy S.M. Hill

  4. Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany

    Andreas Wessel

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Čokl, A., Zorović, M., Kosi, A.Ž., Stritih, N., Virant-Doberlet, M. (2014). Communication Through Plants in a Narrow Frequency Window. In: Cocroft, R., Gogala, M., Hill, P., Wessel, A. (eds) Studying Vibrational Communication. Animal Signals and Communication, vol 3. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43607-3_10

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