Journal
NEW PHYTOLOGIST
Volume 236, Issue 4, Pages 1605-1619Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/nph.18432
Keywords
cue; ecological interactions; information recovery; signal; volatile organic compounds
Categories
Funding
- Sydney Informatics Hub
- Core Research Facility of the University of Sydney
- Australian Research Council ARC-DP [DP190101441]
- University of Sydney
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Studying the open-access information emitted by organisms can provide answers to important questions about ecological interactions and evolution. This study introduces a new conceptual framework and practical method to extract information from olfactory noise. By quantifying odor emissions from two tree species, researchers can identify which odors are likely to contain information.
All organisms emit odour, providing 'open-access' olfactory information for any receiver with the right sensory apparatus. Characterizing open-access information emitted by groups of organisms, such as plant species, provides the means to answer significant questions about ecological interactions and their evolution. We present a new conceptual framework defining information reliability and a practical method to characterize and recover information from amongst olfactory noise. We quantified odour emissions from two tree species, one focal group and one outgroup, to demonstrate our approach using two new R statistical functions. We explore the consequences of relaxing or tightening criteria defining information and, from thousands of odour combinations, we identify and quantify those few likely to be informative. Our method uses core general principles characterizing information while incorporating knowledge of how receivers detect and discriminate odours. We can now map information in consistency-precision reliability space, explore the concept of information, and test information-noise boundaries, and between cues and signals.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available