Nature | Research Highlights
Animal behaviour: Vibrations on a stick
Volume: 465, Page: 401, Date published: 27 May 2010
doi:10.1038/465401c
Cited research: Curr. Biol. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2010.03.069 (2010)
Vertebrates living on plants can communicate through not only sound
and visual displays, but also by vibrating the plants on which they
perch.
Michael Caldwell at Boston University in Massachusetts and his
colleagues studied such behaviour in wild male red-eyed tree frogs
(Agalychnis callidryas). These creatures defend their territories and
compete for females by rapidly shaking their hind ends.
The researchers also staged contests between pairs of males. They
found that shaking was the most frequently displayed signalling
behaviour, with victorious males tending to shake more than their
opponents. Experiments using a robotic frog, an electronic shaker and
sound recordings showed that the frogs shake in response only to plant
vibrations, and not to the shaking model frog or vibrational sounds.
J.F.
Enjoy!
Xiao
XIAO, Jianqiang, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Psychology Department
Rutgers University
152 Frelinghuysen Road
Piscataway, NJ 08854
|