Abstract
Animal signals—involving combinations of acoustic, chemical, visual, and behavioral cues—are among the most diverse traits in nature. Testing hypotheses about signal evolution has been hampered by difficulties with comparing highly divergent signals among species. In this Primer, I describe recent advances in capturing signals and studying their evolution. I highlight new findings using an information theory–based approach to quantifying signal variation in the diverse birds-of-paradise. Growing access to signal databases in tandem with development of new analytical tools will open up new avenues for studying the proximate mechanisms and ultimate evolutionary causes of signal variation, both within and among species.
Highlights
Animals communicate with each other in diverse ways, including chemicals, sounds, colors, and movement
Development of a theoretical framework for how signal traits coevolve with preferences in the 1990s led to a burst of research on the mechanisms and diversity of animal signals [1]
Animal signals provide a rich arena for integrative biological research, encompassing physiologists interested in the physical or chemical mechanisms producing signals [2], developmental biologists interested in the genetic bases for signals [3], and neurobiologists studying the processes involved in receiving signals [4], as well as behavioral ecologists and evolutionary biologists studying the causes and consequences of signal divergence among species [5]
Summary
Animal signals—involving combinations of acoustic, chemical, visual, and behavioral cues— are among the most diverse traits in nature. Testing hypotheses about signal evolution has been hampered by difficulties with comparing highly divergent signals among species. In this Primer, I describe recent advances in capturing signals and studying their evolution. I highlight new findings using an information theory–based approach to quantifying signal variation in the diverse birds-of-paradise. Growing access to signal databases in tandem with development of new analytical tools will open up new avenues for studying the proximate mechanisms and ultimate evolutionary causes of signal variation, both within and among species
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