Bats jamming bats: Food competition through sonar interference

Corcoran, Aaron J.; Conner, William E.

doi:10.1126/science.1259512

Cited by 62 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Territorial behaviors at the roost have been observed for many species, and not coincidentally most examples of singing have been collected at the roost. However, as new tools emerge for recording and tracking the nightly activity patterns of individuals (Cvikel et al 2014) evidence is accumulating that bats do compete for food and defend preferred foraging territories, even if only temporarily or seasonally (Corcoran and Conner 2014). To look more closely at this, we next compare representative examples of the interplay between singing and territorial behaviors from four different bat families.…”

Section: Foraging Ecologymentioning

confidence: 98%

The origins and diversity of bat songs

et al. 2016

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Singing plays an important role in the social lives of several disparate bat species, but just how significant the behavior may be among bats generally is unknown. Recent discoveries suggest singing by bats might be surprisingly more diverse and widespread than anticipated, but if true then two questions must be addressed: firstly why has singing been so rarely documented among bats, and secondly do bats sing for the same reasons as songbirds? We address the first question by reviewing how sampling bias and technical constraints may have produced a myopic view of bat social communication. To address the second question, we review evidence from 50 years of batsong literature supporting the supposition that bat singing is linked to the same constellation of ecological variables that favored birdsong, including territoriality, polygyny, metabolic constraints, migratory behaviors and especially powered flight. We propose that bats sing like birds because they fly like birds; flight is energetically expensive and singing reduces time spent flying. Factoring in the singular importance of acoustic communication for echolocating bats, it seems likely that singing may prove to be relatively common among certain groups of bats once it becomes clear when and where to look for it.

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Section: Foraging Ecologymentioning

confidence: 98%

The origins and diversity of bat songs

et al. 2016

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“…Interestingly, 53% of the SFM calls recorded during feeding activities occurred with the emergence of conspecific echolocation pulses in the terminal phases of insect pursuit, while only 0-2% of other syllable types overlapped with feeding buzzes. Research on Tadarida brasiliensis has demonstrated that SFM signals are used as jamming signals to reduce the foraging success of potential competitors (Ratcliffe et al 2004;Corcoran & Conner 2014). As documented in our spectrograms, SFM exhibits remarkable overlap in fundamental frequency, maximum frequency and downward sweeping portions with feeding buzzes of conspecific bats (Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 53%

“…These contact calls provide evidence for individual signatures, and playback studies demonstrated that bats preferentially responded to the stimuli familiar to them (Arnold & Wilkinson 2011). Corcoran and Conner (2014) confirmed that Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) uttered sinusoidal frequency-modulated (SFM) ultrasonic signals to mediate intraspecific food competition. The SFM calls overlapped temporally and spectrally with feeding buzzes of conspecific bats, and, thus, these calls greatly interfered with the ability of competitors to detect and locate insect prey.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Social vocalizations of big‐footed myotis (Myotis macrodactylus) during foraging

Guo

Luo

Zhang

et al. 2019

Integrative Zoology

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Acoustic signals play a crucial role in transmitting information and maintaining social stability in gregarious animals, especially in echolocating bats, which rely primarily on biological sonar for navigating in the dark. In the context of foraging without relying on tactile, visual or olfactory cues, acoustic signals convey information not only on food but also on ownership and defense of resources. However, studies on such information remain fragmentary. In the present study, we aim to document the social vocal repertoire of Myotis macrodactylus at natural foraging sites. Multiple acoustic analyses and spectrographic classification revealed a rich foraging vocal repertoire comprising 6 simple syllables and 2 composites. Discriminant function analyses associated with a subset‐validation procedure provided an optimal method to spectrographically classify all recorded sounds into different syllable types. Multidimensional scaling of median values of multiple parameters further confirmed notable differences among these syllables in a 3‐D space. In addition, Euclidean distance analysis showed that there were some spectral similarities between specific social vocal syllables and feeding buzzes, which implied a potential jamming role. Altogether, the data indicate that bats at foraging sites under natural conditions used variant social vocalizations with different functions in addition to echolocation calls, providing supporting evidence for further work on the function and vocal mechanisms of acoustic communication in mammals.

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“…Among these impacts, acoustic masking is especially problematic and has been used to explain the vocal response to noise for many species (e.g. Brumm et al, 2004; Corcoran and Conner, 2014; Francis et al, 2011; Gerhardt and Klump, 1988). The acoustic masking hypothesis states that auditory masking may occur if the target sound and interfering sounds overlap in frequency (Luo et al, 2015b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bats adjust temporal features of echolocation calls but not those of communication calls in response to traffic noise

Song

Lin

Jiang

et al. 2018

Preprint

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statement: 26 This study reveals the impact of anthropogenic noise on spectrally distinct vocalizations 27 and the limitations of the acoustic masking hypothesis to explain the vocal response of 28 bats to chronic noise. 29 2 Abstract 30The acoustic masking hypothesis states that auditory masking may occur if the target 31 sound and interfering sounds overlap spectrally, and it suggests that animals exposed to 32 noise will modify their acoustic signals to increase signal detectability. However, it is 33 unclear if animals will put more effort into changing their signals that spectrally overlap 34 more with the interfering sounds than when the signals overlap less. We examined the 35 dynamic changes in the temporal features of echolocation and communication 36 vocalizations of the Asian particolored bat (Vespertilio sinensis) when exposed to traffic 37 noise. We hypothesized that traffic noise has a greater impact on communication 38 vocalizations than on echolocation vocalizations and predicted that communication 39 vocalization change would be greater than echolocation. The bats started to adjust 40 echolocation vocalizations on the fourth day of noise exposure, including an increased 41 number of call sequences, decreased number of calls, and vocal rate within a call 42 sequence. However, there was little change in the duration of the call sequence. In 43 contrast, these communication vocalization features were not significantly adjusted 44 under noise conditions. These findings suggest that the degree of spectral overlap 45 between noise and animal acoustic signals does not predict the level of temporal vocal 46 response to the noise.47 48

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Bats jamming bats: Food competition through sonar interference

Cited by 62 publications

References 19 publications

The origins and diversity of bat songs

The origins and diversity of bat songs

Social vocalizations of big‐footed myotis (Myotis macrodactylus) during foraging

Bats adjust temporal features of echolocation calls but not those of communication calls in response to traffic noise

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