Biotremology: Studying Vibrational Behavior

Peggy S.M. Hill received her BS and MS degrees from the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, where she was broadly trained in organic and environmental biology and specifically trained in community and evolutionary ecology. She taught secondary science for 10 years before returning to the University as an Instructor. She earned her PhD from the University of Oklahoma, specializing in behavioral and physiological ecology, but most importantly began exploring vibrational behavior in molecrickets. In 2008 she published the book Vibrational Communication in Animals (Harvard U Press). She retired as a Professor of Biological Science in 2018, and continues to write and study as a Professor Emerita of the University of Tulsa.

Reinhard Lakes-Harlan received his PhD from the University of Marburg with a thesis on plasticity in the grasshopper’s nervous system (Kalmring Lab). He has been a postdoc at McGill University, Montreal (Pollack Lab) and the University of Göttingen (Elsner Lab). He is currently a Professor of Sensory Physiology at the University of Giessen. His chief focus is on the physiology, ecophysiology, and evolution of mechano-sensory organs in insects.

Valerio Mazzoni earned his PhD from the University of Pisa, Italy, where he was trained in leafhopper and planthopper taxonomy and ecology. As a postdoc, he was trained in biotremology at the National Institute of Ljubljana, where he contributed to substantial advances in the concept of biotremology as applied to arthropod pests. Currently, he is the leader of the Agricultural Entomology unit at the Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach of San Michele all’Adige, where he directs the Bioacoustics Lab. In 2016 and 2018, he was the convener of the first two editions of the International Symposium of Biotremology.

Peter M. Narins received his B.S. and M.E.E. in Electrical Engineering and his Ph.D. in Neurobiology & Behavior fromCornell University, Ithaca. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Neuroethology at the Department of Integrative Biology & Physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His research explores the mechanisms underlying the evolution of sound and vibration communication in vertebrates. He has led or participated in 57 overseas research expeditions to seven continents, and is an Honorary Member of the Cuban Zoological Society and Professor Ad Honorem at the University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay.

Meta Virant-Doberlet received her PhD from the University of Ljubljana. Having initially trained as an insect neurobiologist at the Max Planck Institute for Behavioural Physiology in Seewiesen, she is now focusing her research on various aspects of arthropod vibrational communication. She has been a Marie Curie fellow at Cardiff University and is now Head of the Department of Organisms and Ecosystems Research at the National Institute of Biology in Ljubljana, where she uses leafhoppers as a model for studying interactions shaping the evolution of the vibrational communication channel.

Andreas Wessel was trained in evolutionary and behavioral biology at the University of Vienna and Humboldt University Berlin. He currently works in Berlin, Germany, as an independent researcher and is affiliated with the Museum of Natural History as a guest scientist. His research focus is on cave planthoppers as models for vibrational communication as well as adaptation to extreme environments and rapid speciation. Furthermore, he publishes frequently on the history and philosophy of biology, and writes for various newspapers and magazines.