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The team listened to calling patterns between three frogs over different time intervals, and found the frogs both avoided overlapping croaks and collectively switched between calling and silence.Then a mathematical model was created from these observations.
“We found neighbouring frogs avoided temporal overlap, which allows a clear path for individual voices to be heard,” said researcher Daichi Kominami explains. “In this same way, neighbouring nodes in a sensor network need to alternate the timings of data transmission so the data packets don’t collide.”
Male frogs alternate their calls over a short time scale, collectively switching between calling and silent states over a longer scale
Amongst the frog trio, there were also times of alternating between collective silences and choruses. The overlap avoidance was deterministic (consistent), while the collective calls were stochastic (varied) – revealing that the frogs get smart rest breaks from calling, which demands a great deal of energy, according to Osaka University.
“We modelled the calling and silent states in a deterministic way,” said scientist Ikkyu Aihara, “while modelled the transitions to and from them in a stochastic way. Those models qualitatively reproduced the calling pattern of actual frogs and were then helpful in designing autonomous distributed communication systems.”
Having constructed the, it was applied to data traffic management in a wireless sensor network.
“They found the short-time-scale alternation was especially effective at averting data packet collisions,” according to Osaka University. “Meanwhile, the cyclic and collective transitions in the long time scale offered promise for regulating energy consumption.”
The work is described in ‘Mathematical modelling and application of frog choruses as an autonomous distributed communication system‘ was published by Royal Society Open Science.
Figure 1. A male Japanese tree frog that produces the type of call examined in this study. (credit: Osaka University)
Figure 2. Relationship between a frog chorus and a wireless sensor network.
(credit: Osaka University)
Figure 3. Empirical data on a frog chorus; male frogs alternate their calls over a short time scale, collectively switching between calling and silent states.
(credit: Osaka University)
DOI: 10.1098/rsos.181117
to adapt the frogs’ acoustic teachings for technological benefit, as such patterns are similar to those valued in networks. The findings are reported in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
Related links
Advanced Network Architecture Research Laboratory (Murata Lab.), Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University (link in Japanese)
