Acoustical Communication in Arthropods

Abstract

Prior to the early 1950's, the study of arthropod acoustical behavior had been in a relatively stable state for a long time. Although hundreds of papers had been published on sound production and reception in insects, they had dealt chiefly with the morphology and physiology of devices that were either known or suspected to produce or respond to sounds [see bibliography (55)}. Only a few critical experiments on acoustical behavior had been performed (66, 68, 96, 113, 128-130). An abundance of review articles and books (13, 14, 37, 49, 50, 65, 111, 112, 123, 125, 131, 142) had failed to bring about any sustained growth of interest comparable to that enjoyed more recently by the field. The accelerating development of electronic recording and analyzing equipment following World War II ushered in a new era, attracting a large number of workers into many aspects of the field of animal communication. In the course of 10 or 15 years, several hundred papers were published on arthropod acoustics, including five books (24, 51, 76, 85, 150) and an impres­ sive array of review articles (1, 3, 6---8, 43-45, 54, 77, 124 and others). The recent volume on acoustical behavior of animals edited by Busnel (25) de­ votes 285 pages to articles dealing solely with arthropods by six different authors, and insects are prominently discussed in several of the other chap­ ters. Nearly 500 genera of arthropods are mentioned, including representa­ tives of 15 orders of insects. The great preponderance of this recent work, inspired by the availability of new equipment and techniques, has involved descriptions and comparisons of the physical structure of the sounds themselves and of the ranges of re­ sponsiveness of auditory organs. Relatively little direct study of the com­ municative significance of the various signals has been carried out, though probably more than has been accomplished for any other animal group. I t seems clear that we are now on the threshold of still another era in the study of arthropod acoustics. The flurry of interest that generates whenever any new kind of biological information becomes available has largely faded. In some fields, such as systematics, applications have become well established and are incorporated into the methodologies of those active in the field (2, 5, 10, 146, 155, 156, 158). In other areas, such as insect control, there have been few or no encouraging developments (17, 56---58, 77, 89). Many of the workers who stepped into this field with the advent of new methods and equipment have stepped out again, and review articles seem to be proliferating faster than the research papers necessary for their sustenance. In short, the band