This volume explains the key ideas, questions and methods involved in studying the hidden world of vibrational communication in animals. The authors dispel the notion that this form of communication is difficult to study and show how vibrational signaling is a key to social interactions in species that live in contact with a substrate, whether it be a grassy lawn, a rippling stream or a tropical forest canopy. This ancient and widespread form of social exchange is also remarkably understudied. A frontier in animal behavior, it offers unparalleled opportunities for discovery and for addressing general questions in communication and social evolution. In addition to reviews of advances made in the study of several animal taxa, this volume also explores topics such as vibrational communication networks, the interaction of acoustic and vibrational communication, the history of the field, the evolution of signal production and reception and establishing a common vocabulary.

Fostering research progress in a rapidly growing field.- Stretching the paradigm or building anew? Development of a cohesive language for vibrational communication.- Sound or vibration, an old question in insect communication.- Hildegard Strübing a pioneer in vibrational communication research.- Sound production the crucial factor for mate finding in planthoppers (Homoptera Auchenorrhyncha) (Preliminary communication), 1958.- Interactions between airborne sound and substrate vibration in animal communication.- Vibrational communication networks: eavesdropping and biotic noise.- Active space and the role of amplitude in plant-borne vibrational communication.- Mutual behavioral adjustment in vibrational duetting.- Communication through plants in a narrow frequency window.- Physical aspects of vibrational communication.- The role of wave and substrate heterogeneity in vibratory communication: Practical issues in studying the role of vibratory environments in communication.- Vibrational playback experiments: challenges and solutions.- Functional morphology and evolutionary diversity of vibration receptors in insects.- Echolocation in whirligig beetles using surface waves: an unsubstantiated conjecture.- Sand-borne vibrations in prey detection and orientation of antlions.- Mechanical signals in honeybee communication.- Barth Vibratory communication in stingless bees (Meliponini). The challenge of interpreting the signals.- The role of frequency in vibrational communication of Orthoptera.- The tymbal Evolution of a complex vibration-producing organ in the Tymbalia (Hemiptera excl. Sternorrhyncha).