Signalers and Receivers

In most terrestrial and aquatic habitats, the vast majority of animals transmitting and receiving communicative signals are arthropods. This book presents the story of how this important group of animals use pheromones, sound, vibration, and light for sexual and social communication. Because of their small to minute body size most arthropods have problems sending and receiving acoustic and optical information, each of which have their own severe constraints. Becauseof these restraints they have developed chemical signaling which is not similarly limited by scale. Presenting the latest theoretical and experimental findings from studies of signaling, it suggests that close parallels between arthropods and vertebrates reflect a very limited number of solutions toproblems in behavior that are available within the confines of physical laws.

In summary, this is a valuable addition to the literature on animal communication at the introductory level. Greenfield's book is worthwile precisely because it is brief. I will recommend this book for undergraduate courses and for the generalist reader who wants to know more about this interesting subject., On nearly every page there is an intriguing example from nature, a clear explanation, a thoughtful and novel commentary, a thread leading in an unexpected direction., The drive to organize a broad range of knowledge into a unified, comprehensible scheme is combined with an equal fascination with the details of how each particular system works and the problems that needed to be solved to make it work. This makes for rewarding reading from start to finish.