The sensory drive hypothesis provides an integrative framework for understanding how environmental conditions shape the evolution of sensory systems, communication signals, signaling behavior, and habitat use. This mini-review synthesizes current evidence on the role of environmental constraints in signal evolution across aquatic and terrestrial organisms, with particular emphasis on visual, acoustic, multimodal, and chemosensory communication. The available evidence indicates that sensory drive is particularly well supported in aquatic visual systems, where variation in light environment can influence both sensory tuning and the evolution of visual signals. Acoustic communication provides complementary evidence, demonstrating that habitat structure and environmental noise can shape signal transmission and promote changes in signal characteristics and signaling behavior. Multimodal systems further reveal that environmental conditions may generate trade-offs or complementary patterns of investment among signaling modalities. However, environmental effects on signals do not necessarily coincide with parallel changes in sensory systems. Conserved sensory traits, morphological constraints, predation risk, foraging requirements, and other ecological pressures may restrict or redirect evolutionary responses. Chemosensation represents an important but comparatively underexplored component of sensory drive. Overall, the evidence supports sensory drive as a context-dependent evolutionary framework in which environmental conditions establish selective pressures, while the resulting evolutionary trajectories depend on the functional constraints and evolvability of both signalers and receivers.
