Animal Communication Networks

This book is about how and why animals communicate, covering several different animal groups and types of signal.

P. K. McGregor (Edited by)

9780521823616, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 March 2005

672 pages, 78 b/w illus. 14 tables
25.4 x 18 x 3.5 cm, 1.446 kg

"I found this book exciting, thought-provoking, and an important contribution. Every chapter was strong.... I urge all communication researchers to read this book. It is clear and accessible, allowing readers to see how this perspective might or might not apply to behaviors both seemingly already understood and currently mysterious."
Penny L. Bernstein, BioScience

Most animal communication has evolved and now takes place in the context of a communication network, i.e. several signallers and receivers within communication range of each other. This idea follows naturally from the observation that many signals travel further than the average spacing between animals. This is self evidently true for long-range signals, but at a high density the same is true for short-range signals (e.g. begging calls of nestling birds). This book provides a current summary of research on communication networks and appraises future prospects. It combines information from studies of several taxonomic groups (insects to people via fiddler crabs, fish, frogs, birds and mammals) and several signalling modalities (visual, acoustic and chemical signals). It also specifically addresses the many areas of interface between communication networks and other disciplines (from the evolution of human charitable behaviour to the psychophysics of signal perception, via social behaviour, physiology and mathematical models).

1. Introduction Peter K. McGregor
Part I. Behaviours Specific to Communication Networks: 2. Eavesdropping in communication networks Tom M. Peake
3. Public, private or anonymous? Facilitating and countering eavesdropping Torben Dabelsteen
4. Performing in front of an audience - signallers and the social environment Ricardo J. Matos and Ingo Schlupp
5. Fighting, mating and networking: pillars of poeciliid sociality Ryan L. Earley and Lee Alan Dugatkin
6. The occurrence and function of victory displays within communication networks John L. Bower
Part II. The Effects of Particular Contexts: 7. Enlightened decisions: female assessment and communication networks Ken A. Otter and Laurene Ratcliffe
8. Predation and noise in communication networks of neotropical katydids Alexander Lang, Ingeborg Teppner, Manfred Hartbauer and Heiner Römer
9. Nestling begging as a communication network Andrew G. Horn and Marty Leonard
10. Redirection of aggression: multiparty signalling in a network? Anahita J. N. Kazem and Filippo Aureli
11. Scent marking and social communication Jane L. Hurst
Part III. Communication Networks in Different Taxa: 12. Waving in a crowd: fiddler crabs signal in networks Denise S. Pope
13. Anuran choruses as communication networks T. Ulmar Grafe
14. Singing interactions in songbirds: implications for social relations and territorial settlement Marc Naguib
15. Dawn chorus as an interactive communication network John M. Burt and Sandra L. Vehrencamp
16. Eavesdropping and scent over-marking Robert E. Johnston
17. Vocal communication networks in large terrestrial mammals Karen E. McComb and David Reby
18. Underwater acoustic communication networks in marine mammals Vincent Janik
19. Looking for, looking at: social control, honest signals, and intimate experience in human evolution and history John Locke
Part IV. Interfaces with Other Disciplines: 20. Perception and acoustic communication networks Ulrike Langemann and Georg M. Klump
21. Hormones, social context and animal communication Rui F. Oliveira
22. Cooperation in communication networks: indirect reciprocity in interactions between cleaner fish and client reef fish Reduoan Bshary and Arun D'Souza
23. Fish semiochemicals and the evolution of communication networks Brian D. Wisenden and Norman E Stacey
24. Cognitive aspects of networks and avian capacities Irene M. Pepperberg
25. Social complexity and the information acquired during eavesdropping by primates and other animals Dorothy Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth
26. Communication networks in a virtual world Andrew M. R. Terry and Robert Lachlan.

Subject Areas: Animal behaviour [PSVP], Zoology & animal sciences [PSV]