The evolution of biological complexity from simple progenitors is considered a key feature of life on Earth, studied by biologists for centuries. Nowhere has complexity captivated human imagination more than in animal signals—from intricate butterfly wings to the melodic songs of birds and whales. This project tackles complexity in animal acoustic signals—specifically vibrational signals, which travel through plants as communication channels. Biotic features of the environment do not reliably predict signal complexity, so we instead study how complexity in vibrational signals has evolved over time and how they are shaped by the physics of the environment. We model wave transmission through plants and determine whether differences in transmission across plants predict patterns of signal complexity. We then test if the models predict when innovation (i.e. novel ways to produce signals) evolves. We will record from various plants at Tyson Research Center to concatenate signal diversity, and model the transmission of vibrations through those same plants.
Vibrational transmission through different prairie plants