Reginald B Cocroft

• PhD
• Professor at University of Missouri

Plants experience a wide variety of mechanical stimuli in their environment, some of which indicate the presence of herbivory. Insect feeding vibrations elicit direct and primed increases in levels of defensive compounds. Touch is also a mechanical stimulus arising from rain, wind, and the movement of herbivores and pollinators. In this study, we c...

Many insect species communicate about activities central to their survival and reproduction via vibrational signals (i.e., waves that travel through solid substrates). One widely used and effective approach for testing hypotheses about communication is the playback experiment, in which stimuli are played to focal organisms and their responses are d...

Substrate‐borne vibrations are ubiquitous in nature and are used by diverse taxa to communicate and to obtain information about their environments. However, substrate‐borne vibrations remain understudied compared with other sensory and signaling modalities, in part due to human sensory biases. In addition, understanding and quantifying the transmis...

Living organisms use both chemical and mechanical stimuli to survive in their environment. Substrate-borne vibrations play a significant role in mediating behaviors in animals and inducing physiological responses in plants, leading to the emergence of the discipline of biotremology. Biotremology is experiencing rapid growth both in fundamental rese...

Living organisms use substrate-borne vibrations for interacting with their environment, where vibrational signals and cues can evoke a diverse range of responses, leading to benefits or detriments for the sender and/or receiver based on the context. Vibrational signals mediate a variety of animal behaviors, and, notably, plants can gain crucial inf...

Toe tapping is performed by certain anuran species while foraging for their prey. This behavior has been described in different frog families, with some hypotheses regarding its function, including predator-prey communication, still unverified. To understand the function of toe tapping and its potential relationship with foraging in anurans, the pr...

There is overwhelming evidence that synthetic pesticides have a negative impact on the environment and human health, emphasizing the need for novel and sustainable methods for plant protection. A growing body of literature reports that plants interact through substrate-borne vibrations with arthropod pests and mutualistic arthropods that provide bi...

Many interactions of plants with the environment have an acoustic component, including the actions of herbivores and pollinators, wind and rain. Although plants have long been tested for their response to single tones or music, their response to naturally occurring sources of sound and vibration is barely explored. We argue that progress in underst...

There is increasing appreciation of the role of vibration-mediated interactions among animals, and between animals and plants. However, growth of the field is limited by the widespread assumption that this research requires expensive, specialized equipment for detecting and reproducing vibrations. In this chapter, we demonstrate that this assumptio...

Students of speciation debate the role of performance trade-offs across different environments early in speciation. We tested for early performance trade-offs with a host shift experiment using a member of the Enchenopa binotata species complex of treehoppers (Hemiptera: Membracidae). In this clade of plant-feeding insects, different species live o...

Plant defenses that respond to the threat of herbivory require accurate sensing of the presence of herbivores. Herbivory cues include mechanical damage, elicitors from insect saliva or eggs, and airborne volatiles emitted by wounded plants. Plants can also respond to the leaf vibrations produced by chewing herbivores. However, previous studies of t...

Feeding by chewing insects induces chemical defenses in plants that are regulated by the jasmonic acid (JA) pathway. Jasmonates are usually quantified by liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis of precursors and products in the biosynthetic pathway or inferred from the extraction and expression of genes known to respond to elevated...

Plants are able to sense their environment and respond appropriately to different stimuli. Vibrational signals (VS) are one of the most widespread yet understudied ways of communication between organisms. Recent research into the perception of VS by plants showed that they are ecologically meaningful signals involved in different interactions of pl...

Plant perception of insect feeding involves integration of the multiple signals involved: wounding, oral secretions, and substrate borne feeding vibrations. Although plant responses to wounding and oral secretions have been studied, little is known about how signals from the rapidly transmitted vibrations caused by chewing insect feeding are integr...

Unintended receivers can be an important source of selection on social signals. Vibrational social signals are produced by diverse taxa, but most work on eavesdropping on social communication has focused on airborne signals. Few studies have examined whether predators and parasitoids exploit vibrational social signals, and whether vibrational commu...

Plant perception of insect feeding involves integration of the multiple signals involved: wounding, oral secretions, and substrate borne feeding vibrations. Although plant responses to wounding and oral secretions have been studied, little is known about how signals from the rapidly transmitted vibrations caused by chewing insect feeding are integr...

Testing plant responses to natural sources of mechanical vibration requires methods that can precisely reproduce complex vibrational stimuli. Here we describe a method for conducting high-fidelity vibrational playbacks using consumer audio equipment and custom-written signal processing software.

1. In treehoppers in which courtship has been studied, males initiate the search for females by periodically emitting a vibrational signal. The responses by the female are used by males as a beacon and give rise to a duet. 2. Courtship and mating of the treehopper Ennya maculicornis were characterised through the simultaneous recording of vibration...

Antecedentes. Los Crocodylia inician su historia de vida al superar la etapa de incubación con la eclosión en grupo. La temperatura de incubación es importante para el desarrollo de los embriones y el proceso de eclosión, durante el cual emiten sonidos. Objetivos. Reportar la influencia del tamaño de la nidada sobre la duración y el éxito de eclosi...

Background. The Crocodylia begin their life by overcoming the incubation stage with group hatching. Incubation temperature is important for the development of the embryos and the duration of the hatching process, during which they emit sounds. Goals. The effect of the size of the clutch on the duration and success of hatching is reported for the fi...

Animal movement decisions involve an action-perception cycle in which sensory flow influences motor output. Key aspects of the action-perception cycle involved in movement decisions can be identified by integrating path information with measurement of environmental cues. We studied mate searching in insects for which the primary sensory cues are me...

The importance and prevalence of phylogenetic tracking between hosts and dependent organisms caused by co-evolution and shifting between closely related host species have been debated for decades. Most studies of phylogenetic tracking among phytophagous insects and their host plants have been limited to insects feeding on a narrow range of host spe...

El cuidado parental es la actividad de cuidar a los neonatos o crías por parte de la madre, el padre o ambos. Esta actividad que no es tan común en anfibios la realizan algunas familias con diversas modalidades. Se observó el cuidado parental de una hembra de Leptodactylus petersii a una escuela de sus renacuajos en un pantano temporal en la amazon...

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...

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...

Vibrational communication holds the unique position of being one of the most ancient and widespread forms of animal communication and yet the most poorly known. The long evolutionary history of vibrational communication, the remarkable diversity of species in which it occurs, and its central role in biotic interactions provide unparalleled opportun...

Plant germination and growth can be influenced by sound, but the ecological significance of these responses is unclear. We asked whether acoustic energy generated by the feeding of insect herbivores was detected by plants. We report that the vibrations caused by insect feeding can elicit chemical defenses. Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) rosettes pre-tre...

ABSTRACT: 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, w...

Female behavior involved in the expression of mate preferences often entails the production of cues that males may use to adjust their efforts and tactics, thus generating interactive back–and–forth reproductive dynamics. We investigated whether female duetting behavior in Enchenopa treehoppers (Hemiptera: Membracidae) offers cues about how attract...

When female mate choice is based on male signals, female responses can be characterized in the form of preference functions that relate signal variation to attractiveness. Within a population, male displays will vary in multiple dimensions; preference functions reveal which of these dimensions are important for female mating decisions, suggest how...

Within animal groups, individuals can learn of a predator's approach by attending to the behaviour of others. This use of social information increases an individual's perceptual range, but can also lead to the propagation of false alarms. Error copying is especially likely in species that signal collectively, because the coordination required for c...

Background/Question/Methods For many small insects that communicate using plant-borne vibrations, finding the vibration source is often necessary during mate searching or recruitment to a feeding site. However, determining the direction of a substrate-borne wave is challenging for small species, because time and amplitude differences are minimal b...

Food webs involving plants, herbivorous insects and their predators account for 75% of terrestrial biodiversity (Price 2002). Within the abundant arthropod community on plants, myriad ecological and social interactions depend on the perception and production of plant-borne mechanical vibrations (Hill 2008). Study of ecological relationships has sho...

One prediction from life-history theory is that males should increase investment in reproductive effort as they age because the opportunity for future reproductive events declines. However, older males may not be able to increase their reproductive effort if condition declines with age. The effect of age-related changes in condition may be especial...

Mate localization in insects that use acoustic, vibrational or visual displays often involves a male-female duet. Female signals provide cues not only to the duetting male, but also to competitors that may attempt to disrupt the duet. Mate localization based on substrate vibrations may be especially vulnerable to such disruption, because localizing...

The explanation of animal communication by means of concepts like information, meaning and reference is one of the central foundational issues in animal behaviour studies. This book explores these issues, revolving around questions such as: • What is the nature of information? • What theoretical roles does information play in animal communication s...

Noise that masks communication signals can affect the evolution of signal form and decisions about when and where to communicate. For the many invertebrates that communicate using plant-borne vibrations, wind is considered to be the major source of environmental noise. However, the influence of wind-induced vibrations on signaling behavior has not...

Selection on advertisement signals arises from interacting sources including female choice, male-male competition, and the communication channel (i.e., the signaling environment). To identify the contribution of individual sources of selection, we used previously quantified relationships between signal traits and each putative source to predict rel...

A combination of divergent natural and sexual selection is a powerful cause of speciation. This conjunction of evolutionary forces may often occur when divergence is initiated by ecological differences between populations because local adaptation to new resources can lead to changes in sexual selection. The hypothesis that differences in resource u...

The structure of male mating signals is often influenced by age. The causes and consequences of age-based signal variation have been much studied in visual, acoustic, and chemical signaling modalities, but are less explored in species that use vibrational signals for mate attraction. However, the complex structure of many vibrational signals makes...

Many animal groups respond collectively to environmental cues. To understand the function of collective behaviour, an important first step is to establish how it varies in response to differences in the relevant cues. Because collective action arises from individual decisions, this in turn requires characterizing the behaviour of individual group m...

A major goal of evolutionary biology is to understand the dynamics of natural selection within populations. The strength and direction of selection can be described by regressing relative fitness measurements on organismal traits of ecological significance. However, many important evolutionary characteristics of organisms are complex, and have corr...

Background/Question/Methods: Many insect species use substrate vibrations as a primary form of communication. Localization of a vibration source, which is necessary for many social interactions, can be difficult for small insects. The mechanisms and behavioral strategies used during localization are poorly understood, especially for species that tr...

The social environment of many species includes synchronous maturation of siblings in family groups, followed by limited dispersal of adults from their natal site. Under these conditions, females may experience high encounter rates with same-age siblings during mate searching, increasing their risk of inbreeding. If inbreeding depression occurs, ma...

Divergence between populations adapting to different environments may be facilitated when the populations differ in their sexual traits. We tested whether colonizing a novel environment may, through phenotypic plasticity, change sexual traits in a way that could alter the dynamics of sexual selection. This hypothesis has two components: changes in...

For specialized herbivorous insects, shifts to novel host plants can have dramatic evolutionary consequences. If mating traits diverge, assortative mating can develop between ancestral and novel host populations and facilitate speciation. Mating signals may diverge under a variety of scenarios. Signal differences may be a consequence of divergence...

This chapter examines the role of communication systems in the diversification of the Enchenopa binotata species complex of treehoppers. It first discusses the role of ecological factors in promoting assortative mating among populations of E. binotata on ancestral and novel species of host plant. The chapter then looks at the role of sexual communi...

Shifts to novel host plants can have dramatic consequences for a wide range of traits in plant‐feeding insects. If the traits affected are mating signals, host shifts can provide a direct source of reproductive isolation. Mating signal evolution will be affected when changes in host use, either by use of a different plant species or plant part, lea...

Speciation in plant‐feeding insects is associated with shifts to novel host plants. Along with differences in a suite of life history and fitness‐related traits, closely related insect species that live on different host plants often differ dramatically in their communication systems. Differences in traits involved in sexual communication can provi...

Conventional approaches to measuring animal vibrational signals on plant stems use a single transducer to measure the amplitude of vibrations. Such an approach, however, will often underestimate the amplitude of bending waves traveling along the stem. This occurs because vibration transducers are maximally sensitive along a single axis, which may n...

Sexual communication often involves signal exchanges between the sexes, or duetting, in which mate choice is expressed through response signals. With both sexes acting as signalers and receivers, variation in the signals of males and females may be important for mate choice, reproductive isolation, and divergence. In the Enchenopa binotata species...

Many insects and other arthropods communicate using plant-borne vibrational signals. Vibration transmission along plant stems imposes a frequency filter on signals, and may cause signal degradation from reflected waves. Furthermore, different plant species and plant parts can differ in their transmission properties. This variability in the communic...

Mate choice is considered an important influence in the evolution of mating signals and other sexual traits, and--since divergence in sexual traits causes reproductive isolation--it can be an agent of population divergence. The importance of mate choice in signal evolution can be evaluated by comparing male signal traits with female preference func...

In lesser waxmoths Achroia grisella, pair formation and female mate choice involve very fine discrimination of male ultrasonic signals. Female A. grisella prefer male signals with longer pulses and longer ;asynchrony intervals', and evaluate differences in these characteristics in the range of 80-260 mus. The first step in the evaluation of these c...

Insects are the dominant herbivores in tropical forests, with a range of mechanisms for exploiting plant resources. For group-living species, such mechanisms may involve communication. The Neotropical treehopper Calloconophora pinguis (Hemiptera: Membracidae) is a sap-feeding species in which groups of siblings feed on new leaves during the brief p...

Sexual communication can contribute to population divergence and speciation because of its effect on assortative mating. We examined the role of communication in assortative mating in the Enchenopa binotata species complex of treehoppers. These plant-feeding insects are a well studied case of sympatric speciation resulting from shifts to novel host...

Sexual communication can contribute to population divergence and speciation because of its effect on assortative mating. We examined the role of communication in assortative mating in the Enchenopa binotata species complex of treehoppers. These plant-feeding insects are a well studied case of sympatric speciation resulting from shifts to novel host...

Mate signaling systems, because of their role in assortative mating, have often been implicated in the origins of evolutionary independence between lineages. We investigated three sources of phenotypic plasticity in mating signals with potential relevance to assortative mating in a species in the Enchenopa binotata complex of treehoppers. This grou...

The genus Adenomera has been a difficult group for systematic studies because the species are similar and geographically variable. Two species have been reported from the Peruvian Amazon Basin: Adenomera andreae and Adenomera hylaedactyla. However, acoustic recordings from the Tambopata National Reserve in southeastern Peru reveal four sympatric ad...

Communication can play a role in speciation when differences in signaling systems reduce gene flow between diverging lineages. However, the observation that closely related species have different signals leaves open the question of cause and effect, because divergence in signals can also occur after speciation is completed. The relationship of sign...

Many membracid treehoppers are attended by honeydew-harvesting ants. Ant mutualism often favors group living, which will in turn influence social interactios and communication. I investigated aspects of life history that underlie the social behavior of an aggregating, ant-attended treehopper. The number of adults, and their patterns of distribution...

There are many applications for a compact device that is capable of indicating the direction of propagation of substrate vibration. In order to develop effective devices for this purpose, it can be helpful to examine biological systems that have evolved specialized sensory systems for finding a vibration source. We are studying an insect model of v...

The allocation of parental investment is a potential source of conflict within broods whenever offspring are able obtain differential access to the parental resource. Unlike the provisioning of food, parental antipredator behavior is usually considered a resource that benefits all offspring simultaneously. In the thornbug treehopper (Umbonia crassi...

Communication among members of a colony is a key feature of the success of eusocial insects. The same may be true in other forms of insect sociality. I suggest that substrate-borne vibrational communication is important in the success of group-living, herbivorous insects. I examine three challenges encountered by herbivorous insects: locating and r...

Substrate vibrations are important in social and ecological interactions for many insects and other arthropods. Localization cues include time and amplitude differences among an array of vibration detectors. However, for small species these cues are greatly reduced, and localization mechanisms remain unclear. Here we describe a method of simulating...

SYNOPSIS. Communication among members of a colony is a key feature of the success of eusocial insects. The same may be true in other forms of insect sociality. I suggest that substrate-borne vibrational communication is important in the success of group-living, herbivorous insects. I examine three challenges encountered by, herbivorous insects: loc...

The use of substrate vibrations in communication and predator-prey interactions is widespread in arthropods. In many contexts, localization of the vibration source plays an important role. For small species on solid substrates, time and amplitude differences between receptors in different legs may be extremely small, and the mechanisms of vibration...

The defense of offspring from predators is an important aspect of maternal care in the treehopper Umbonia crassicornis. Nymphal offspring develop in a dense cluster around a host plant stem, and laboratory studies show that they can solicit maternal defense using synchronized vibrational signals. Understanding the function of communication, however...

Plant-borne vibration is a common mode of communication among insects, but its use in reptiles has never previously been reported. One of us (KEB) observed that in response to human touch, veiled chameleons (Chamaeleo calyptratus) produce a distinct vibration which emanates from the body just anterior to the front legs. We made accelerometer record...

Parental care of post-hatching offspring is widespread in insects, but the role of communication in parent-offspring interactions remains largely unknown. I have found that, in the subsocial treehopper Umbonia crassicornis , aggregated nymphal offspring produce substrate-borne, vibrational signals in synchronized bursts that elicit the mother's ant...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Cornell University, Jan., 1998. Includes bibliographical references.

We investigated signalling behavior in relation to social context in the cicada Fidicina mannifera. Four types of acoustic signals were recorded from males: songs, calls, low-amplitude songs, and disturbance sounds. Signal types were similar in frequency and fine temporal structure, but differed markedly in gross temporal structure. Songs and calls...

The problem of error in the phylogenetic reconstruction of ancestral character states is explored by developing the model of Frumhoff and Reeve (1994). Information about the evolutionary rate of change within a character is inferred from the distribution of its character states on a known phylogeny, and this information is used to impose confidence...

The problem of error in the phylogenetic reconstruction of ancestral character states is explored by developing the model of Frumhoff and Reeve (1994). Information about the evolutionary rate of change within a character is inferred from the distribution of its character states on a known phylogeny, and this information is used to impose confidence...

Patterns of evolution in the acoustic signals of two groups of anuran amphibians were examined. Call character matrices for clades ofBufo(Bufonidae) andPseudacris(Hylidae) were derived from analysis of tape-recorded calls, and these call characters were mapped onto phylogenetic trees based on morphological and biochemical data. It was found that th...

An acoustical comparison between calls of parasitic butterfly caterpillars and their host ants is presented for the first time. Overall, caterpillar calls were found to be similar to ant calls, even though these organisms produce them by different means. However, a comparison of Maculinea caterpillars with those of Myrmica ants produced no evidence...

An acoustical comparison between calls of parasitic butterfly caterpillars and their host ants is presented for the first time. Overall, caterpillar calls were found to be similar to ant calls, even though these organisms produce them by different means. However, a comparison of Maculinea caterpillars with those of Myrmica ants produced no evidence...

Vocalizations of frogs of the genus Atelopus include three discrete types of signals: pulsed calls, pure tone calls, and short calls. Repertoire composition is conservative across species. Repertoires of most species whose calls have been recorded contain two or three of these identifiable call types. Within a call type, details of call structure a...

A commensal relationship of Chiasmocleis ventrimaculata and Xenesthis immanis was studied over a 3-mo period at Tambopata Reserved Zone, Peru. Observations indicate that both species simultaneously utilize the same diurnal retreats and forage in overlapping areas. Feeding trials suggest that Xenesthis readily feed on some species of anurans, and ob...

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1990. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-87).