Influence of age, sex and body size on echolocation calls of Mediterranean and Mehely’s horseshoe bats, Rhinolophus euryale and R. mehelyi (Chiroptera: Rhinolophidae)

Data, Sample Sizes and Statistics Affect the Recognition of Species of Bats by Their Echolocation Calls

“…Individuals can dramatically change the features of their calls as they search for, detect, and close on flying prey (Griffin et al, 1960), under different environmental conditions (Kalko and Schnitzler, 1993;Kalko, 1995;Obrist, 1995) and/or in the presence of conspecifics (Obrist, 1995;Ratcliffe et al, In press;Ulanovsky et al, In press). Furthermore, calls may vary within species geographically (Thomas et al, 1987;Parsons, 1997;Law, 2002), sexually (Neuweiler et al, 1987;Jones et al, 1992), by age (Jones and Ransome, 1993;Jones and Kokurewicz, 1994;Kazial et al, 2001;Russo et al, 2001) and as a result of bats using different foraging tactics (Ratcliffe and Dawson, 2003). Variability in call detection can be generated by a variety of recording artifacts.…”

Sexual dimorphism in echolocation pulse parameters of the CF-FM bat, Hipposideros pratti

“…This observed sexual dimorphism in the multiple pulse parameters in this bat species is not likely related to the difference in the forearm length and body weight since these two latter physical parameters were not significantly different between the male and female bats (Table 1). Previous studies on sexual dimorphism of echolocation pulses of the CF-FM bats were mainly focused on the predominant CF (Jones et al 1992Knörnschild et al 2012;Russo et al 2001;Feng et al 2003;Siemers et al 2005;Suga et al 1987). For comparison, data on the sexual dimorphism of the predominant CF in different CF-FM bats examined in these previous and the present studies are assembled in Table 3.…”

“…Sexual dimorphism in the echolocation pulses has been reported for both FM and CF-FM bats (Feng et al 2003;Grilliot et al 2009;Jones et al 1992;Kazial and Masters 2004;Knörnschild et al 2012;Russo et al 2001;Siemers et al 2005;Suga et al 1987). Interestingly, most of these studies have been devoted to examining sexual dimorphism of echolocation pulses in the CF-FM bat (Feng et al 2003;Jones et al 1992;Knörnschild et al 2012;Russo et al 2001;Siemers et al 2005).…”

“…Interestingly, most of these studies have been devoted to examining sexual dimorphism of echolocation pulses in the CF-FM bat (Feng et al 2003;Jones et al 1992;Knörnschild et al 2012;Russo et al 2001;Siemers et al 2005). This is perhaps due to the fact that this bat performs unique Doppler-shifted compensation behavior during which the bat appropriately adjusts the frequency of the emitted pulse to compensate for the Dopplershifted frequency of the returning echo.…”

Acoustic Species Identification of Korean Myotis Bats (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae)

“…In case of most insectivorous bats, they mainly depend on echolocation call for orient and forage for flying insects in the dark and also for social communication (Russo and Jones 2001). The structure and shape of echolocation calls could be influenced by various environmental factors such as habitat structures, flight height, geographical variation, age, sex, body size, social group, foraging mode and flying in open versus cluttered space (Aldridge and Rautenbach 1987;Norberg and Rayner 1987;Thomas et al 1987;Fenton 1990;Barclay and Brigham 1991;Obrist 1995;Barclay et al 1999;Russo and Jones 2003;Estrada et al 2004;Fukui et al 2004;Jones and simmers 2010).…”