RESEARCH
We study how interactions between species contribute to the evolution and maintenance of behavioral phenotypes. We spend most of our time right now studying communication and mating behavior.
MULTIMODAL and VIBRATIONAL COMMUNICATION —
Many animal species communicate using signals in more than one modality, such as airborne sound, visual signals, chemical signals, or substrate-borne vibration.
Understanding why animals engage in multimodal communication requires learning about their ecological context, their evolutionary history, the signals themselves, and the responses they elicit from receivers.
We are studying multimodal communication in katydids
(Kernan et al. 2024).
We use experiments in the laboratory and field to test hypotheses about the functions, costs, and benefits of such signaling behavior.
It is estimated that >200,000 insect species communicate at least in part with substrate vibrations - in other words, by shaking the surfaces on which they perch.
Such vibrations can travel through leaf litter, across the water's surface, and through plant stems.
For such species, predator-prey interactions, mate choice, and parent-offspring behavior can all be mediated by signals undetectable to the human ear
(Cocroft & Hamel 2010; Hamel & Cocroft 2012; Hamel & Cocroft 2019).
We use experiments in the laboratory and field to test hypotheses about such signaling behavior
(Cocroft et al. 2014).
INCREASING ACCESS TO RESEARCH — The field of animal communication research is growing! When the economic costs associated with learning and using research methods are reduced, more research by a more diverse research community can happen. As a lab, we have contributed toward an open-access undergraduate-level textbook on methods in studying animal communication (Madhusudhana et al. 2022), and more recently, an open access command-line tool for conducting high-fidelity vibrational playback experiments (Evora et al. In press).
HYBRIDIZATION and MATING BEHAVIOR — In an area where two formerly separated but closely related insect species have come back together, mating decisions sometimes result in hybridization. These matings are driven at least in part by male preference for female body size (Hamel, Nease, & Miller, 2015), and they produce many fewer eggs and offspring than do matings between conspecifics (Hamel et al. 2018). In 2015 and 2016, we tested the hypothesis that reproductive isolation should be greater in this area of species overlap, and we examined habitat and host plant use by both insect species in the field. In 2017, we documented the extremely long copulation durations of one of the focal species, and we assessed the effects of mating duration on female reproductive success (Sears et al. 2020). We also explored inter- and intraspecific mating dynamics (Greenway et al. 2022) and the effects of extreme polyandry on sexual selection and male reproductive success (Greenway et al. 2021) in these species.
STUDY SYSTEMS — We study multimodal and vibrational communication with katydids! We are not currently collecting data on squash bugs or treehoppers.