Animal Communication

Undergraduate

This course will cover mechanistic and evolutionary aspects of communication in vertebrates and invertebrates across four signaling modalities: visual, acoustic, chemical, and electrical. The first part of the course will review mechanisms of signal production, transmission through the environment, and perception by signal receivers for each signaling modality. The second part of the course will examine how natural and sexual selection shape the evolution of communication strategies in animals. The approach will be explicitly evolutionary, and will draw from a broad range of disciplines including physics, chemistry, ecology, psychology, and behavioural ecology. (Prerequisite: BIOL-2101.) (3 lecture hours per week. 2 tutorial hours every other week.)