4-Dimensional Chess: Acoustic Localisation Reveals Nested Spatio-temporal Strategies in an Arboreal Communication Network
- 1University of Texas at Austin
Abstract
1. Adaptive behavioural strategies require animals to simultaneously navigate social and ecological domains across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Although drones and computer vision have recently transformed the study of wild animal societies, many nocturnal species and those occupying structurally complex habitats remain inaccessible to these approaches, limiting our understanding of behaviour in natural settings. 2. We aimed to determine how behavioural strategies are organised across nested spatial and temporal scales within a wild communication network. 3. We used three-dimensional acoustic localisation and source separation to track individual male Hyperolius sp. A, a nocturnal African reed frog, within a natural rainforest chorus and quantify patterns of site fidelity, movement, spatial organisation, and call-timing interactions. 4. Males exhibited significant site fidelity across nights, while chorus spatial structure varied with local caller density. Within nights, individuals followed a stereotyped behavioural sequence, descending from elevated arboreal refugia before settling into lower calling positions near breeding sites. At finer temporal scales, call-timing interactions varied according to both local competitor density and the proximity of neighbouring rivals. 5. These findings demonstrate that behavioural strategies emerge across nested spatial and temporal scales and that long-term spatial positioning, short-term movement decisions, and moment-to-moment signalling interactions are tightly linked within natural communication networks. More broadly, acoustic localisation provides a powerful framework for studying behaviour in species and habitats that remain difficult to observe using conventional approaches.
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BibTeX
@misc{basham20264dimensional,
title = {{4-Dimensional Chess: Acoustic Localisation Reveals Nested Spatio-temporal Strategies in an Arboreal Communication Network}},
author = {E. W. Basham and L. C. Larter and P. S. Champagne and D. L. Jones and T. H. Keitt},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.21.752596},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.21.752596v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - 4-Dimensional Chess: Acoustic Localisation Reveals Nested Spatio-temporal Strategies in an Arboreal Communication Network
AU - E. W. Basham
AU - L. C. Larter
AU - P. S. Champagne
AU - D. L. Jones
AU - T. H. Keitt
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/21
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.21.752596
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.21.752596v1
AB - 1. Adaptive behavioural strategies require animals to simultaneously navigate social and ecological domains across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Although drones and computer vision have recently transformed the study of wild animal societies, many nocturnal species and those occupying structurally complex habitats remain inaccessible to these approaches, limiting our understanding of behaviour in natural settings. 2. We aimed to determine how behavioural strategies are organised across nested spatial and temporal scales within a wild communication network. 3. We used three-dimensional acoustic localisation and source separation to track individual male Hyperolius sp. A, a nocturnal African reed frog, within a natural rainforest chorus and quantify patterns of site fidelity, movement, spatial organisation, and call-timing interactions. 4. Males exhibited significant site fidelity across nights, while chorus spatial structure varied with local caller density. Within nights, individuals followed a stereotyped behavioural sequence, descending from elevated arboreal refugia before settling into lower calling positions near breeding sites. At finer temporal scales, call-timing interactions varied according to both local competitor density and the proximity of neighbouring rivals. 5. These findings demonstrate that behavioural strategies emerge across nested spatial and temporal scales and that long-term spatial positioning, short-term movement decisions, and moment-to-moment signalling interactions are tightly linked within natural communication networks. More broadly, acoustic localisation provides a powerful framework for studying behaviour in species and habitats that remain difficult to observe using conventional approaches.
ER -