Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Behaviours specific to communication networks
- Part II The effects of particular contexts
- Part III Communication networks in different taxa
- Part IV Interfaces with other disciplines
- Introduction
- 20 Perception and acoustic communication networks
- 21 Hormones, social context and animal communication
- 22 Cooperation in communication networks: indirect reciprocity in interactions between cleaner fish and client reef fish
- 23 Fish semiochemicals and the evolution of communication networks
- 24 Cognitive aspects of networks and avian capacities
- 25 Social complexity and the information acquired during eavesdropping by primates and other animals
- 26 Communication networks in a virtual world
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Behaviours specific to communication networks
- Part II The effects of particular contexts
- Part III Communication networks in different taxa
- Part IV Interfaces with other disciplines
- Introduction
- 20 Perception and acoustic communication networks
- 21 Hormones, social context and animal communication
- 22 Cooperation in communication networks: indirect reciprocity in interactions between cleaner fish and client reef fish
- 23 Fish semiochemicals and the evolution of communication networks
- 24 Cognitive aspects of networks and avian capacities
- 25 Social complexity and the information acquired during eavesdropping by primates and other animals
- 26 Communication networks in a virtual world
- Index
Summary
Communication has a history of addressing topics of interest to other disciplines, both in biology and more generally. The interface between disciplines has been long recognized to generate paradigm shifts and the same has been true of interfaces with communication. The interface between communication and neurobiology provides a good example. The discovery that the brain nuclei controlling song production varied in size seasonally (Nottebohm, 1981) was a finding that overturned accepted notions of the stability of brain architecture and triggered studies of evolutionary plasticity in brain structure (e.g. Sherry, 1998). An important question then is whether the communication network approach enhances communication's interest to, and interfaces with, other disciplines.
This section shows that the answer is an emphatic yes, it does. In part, this is shown by the wide range of topics addressed: from perception and physiology, through aspects of cognition to the evolution of altruism. However, it is in the details of the chapters that the value of the approach becomes apparent, as does an enthusiasm about the further research possibilities.
Perception
The extent of a communication network is often an important issue and is discussed by several chapters in this book. Network size is related to the distance at which signals can be received and this distance is influenced by several factors. These factors include the distorting and attenuating effects of the environment through which the signal travels and the level of interference from the signals of others.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Animal Communication Networks , pp. 445 - 450Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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