Communication by its nature is a social process and this is clearly evident in the mating aggregations of many insects and frogs, which are chaotic and cacophonous scenes. The field of social network analysis has greatly advanced our understanding of animal behavior, but this has received surprisingly little attention in the field of animal communication. We are interested in relating the social network to the communication network, by examining how group composition affects communication interactions, how individuals change their pattern of interactions with others across time and space, and how cognitive ability relates to position within the social network. So far, our work on this topic has been theoretical: we developed a simulation model of interactions in an acoustic communication network and determined that variation in receiver sensory processing and cognition has strong effects on communication network structure. In the future we hope to test some of these ideas in the field.
Relevant Publications:
Reichert Lab 