The Umwelt and its relevance to animal communication: introduction to special issue

Abstract

This introduction applies J. von Uexküll's (1934/1957) concept of the Umwelt to the study of animal communication, particularly as it pertains to studies presented at a recent workshop on animal communication in the context of the environment. The environment is conceived broadly in the articles that follow, including the many physical and social environments in which an animal may find itself. The Umwelt concept is briefly expanded here to include also the personal microenvironment of the signaler in which the signal is embedded into the suite of concurrent nonsignaling behaviors of the individual. Other animals may even infer aspects of the signaler's own immediate Umwelt by noticing accompanying attentional cues such as the direction of eye gaze. In this way, part of the Umwelt can be accessible to companions, facilitating the communication process.