Communication by means of substrate-borne vibrations is ancient and widespread in insects and other animals, yet remains under-studied, in part because studying this sensory modality can seem technically out of reach or too expensive. Our lab has a long-term commitment to making the study of vibrational interactions easier, cheaper and more widely accessible. These efforts have resulted in, among other things, software for conducting high-quality vibrational playback experiments (Matlab: Cocroft et al 2014; Michael et al 2019; Open-source: Evora et al 2024), and assessment of inexpensive equipment alternatives (Nieri et al 2022).

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I am always happy to help provide suggestions for equipment for listening or recording for outreach or personal enjoyment, and to help someone new to the field get their recording and playback methods up and running. Just send me an email (cocroftr@missouri.edu).