title: Quantifying ant activity using vibration measurements.
abstract: Ant behaviour is of great interest due to their sociality. Ant behaviour is typically observed visually, however there are many circumstances where visual observation is not possible. It may be possible to assess ant behaviour using vibration signals produced by their physical movement. We demonstrate through a series of bioassays with different stimuli that the level of activity of meat ants (Iridomyrmex purpureus) can be quantified using vibrations, corresponding to observations with video. We found that ants exposed to physical shaking produced the highest average vibration amplitudes followed by ants with stones to drag, then ants with neighbours, illuminated ants and ants in darkness. In addition, we devised a novel method based on wavelet decomposition to separate the vibration signal owing to the initial ant behaviour from the substrate response, which will allow signals recorded from different substrates to be compared directly. Our results indicate the potential to use vibration signals to classify some ant behaviours in situations where visual observation could be difficult.
authors.affiliation: Acoustics & Vibration Unit, School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales Canberra, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Oberst
authors.affiliation: Acoustics & Vibration Unit, School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales Canberra, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia; Departamento de Ingeniera de Comunicaciones, Escuela Tecnica Supérior de Ingeniería Telecomunicación, Campus de Teatinos s/n, Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain.
authors.forename: Enrique Nava
authors.initials: EN
authors.lastname: Baro
authors.affiliation: Acoustics & Vibration Unit, School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales Canberra, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.
authors.forename: Joseph C S
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Theodore A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Evans
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001000:Ants / Q000502:physiology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D014732:Vibration