Bioacoustics & Ecoacoustics Glossary

Arms race

https://glossary.acousti.cloud/arms-race

en

The evolutionary escalation between a communication signal and the resistance of the individual receiver to respond to this signal. The sender produces a signal with increasingly exaggerated characteristics, while the receiver becomes increasingly reluctant to respond to the signal. A common metaphor for this phenomenon is the Red Queen’s instruction to Alice that they must run to stay in the same place.

Reference: [1] Mathevon (2023), The Voices of Nature: How and Why Animals Communicate, pp. 305–308.