Social Learning and Information Transfer in Bats: Conspecific Influence Regarding Roosts, Calls, and Food

Wright, Genevieve Spanjer

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-38953-0_10

Cited by 7 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…While similar predictions could be made for the propensity for social learning in bats, broadscale investigations of this behaviour across bats are still lacking. Social learning studies in bats, recently scarce, are beginning to be more common (reviewed in Wright, ). Perhaps in the years to come we will be able to use comparative analyses to assess the traits that favour social learning in bats as well as those characteristics associated more broadly with social information use.…”

Section: Social Information Usementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social learning can be an efficient strategy for bats to obtain hunting information (reviewed in Wilkinson & Boughman, ; Wright, ). Social information acquisition, however, does not have to involve learning.…”

Section: Social Information Usementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, traditional definitions of social information have explicitly excluded social learning (Danchin et al, ; Valone, ; Valone & Templeton, ). In bats, the role of social information use, both through eavesdropping on echolocation calls and by attending to the behaviours of other hunters, whether through learning or otherwise, is an area in need of widespread, comparative study (Wright, ).…”

Section: Social Information Usementioning

confidence: 99%

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The challenge of detecting prey: Private and social information use in predatory bats

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Bernal

2019

Functional Ecology

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In the evolutionary arms race between predators and their prey, prey often evolve to be as cryptic as they can, while predators in turn hone their sensory strategies to detect prey. Examinations of the sensory strategies implemented by predators to detect their prey, as well as the ecological consequences of these interactions, are at the crux of understanding and predicting predator–prey dynamics. We review the sensory strategies used by predators that rely on private information (attending directly to cues and signals generated by their prey) and those that gather social information (attending to the signals and behaviours of others). We focus our enquiry on bats, an ideal group to shed light on these questions given their ecological diversity, varied foraging strategies and wide range of social behaviours. We discuss the costs and benefits of using private and social information for foraging. We investigate diverse strategies of information use and examine the effects different predatory strategies have on predator sensory systems. We provide an overview of the sensory ecology of information use in hunting in bats and, by identifying current gaps in knowledge, highlight fruitful directions for future research. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

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Section: Social Information Usementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Social Information Usementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Social Information Usementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The challenge of detecting prey: Private and social information use in predatory bats

Page

Bernal

2019

Functional Ecology

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“…For bats, there is only very little knowledge about social learning processes during ontogeny and whether foragingrelated information is socially transmitted from parents to offspring (Wright 2016;Prat and Yovel 2020). Although bats are highly diverse in terms of their feeding habits, ranging from predatory species to those seeking fruits or nectar, inexperienced juveniles of all species face the challenge of properly deciding when, where, what, and how to feed (Galef and Giraldeau 2001;Prat and Yovel 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although bats are highly diverse in terms of their feeding habits, ranging from predatory species to those seeking fruits or nectar, inexperienced juveniles of all species face the challenge of properly deciding when, where, what, and how to feed (Galef and Giraldeau 2001;Prat and Yovel 2020). However, experiments on social learning between parents and offspring are scarce (Wright et al 2011;Ganesh et al 2016;Ripperger et al 2019;Rose et al 2019), and the transmission of social information among adult bats was primarily studied in laboratory experiments with forced spatial proximity between individuals (reviewed in Wilkinson 1995;Wilkinson and Boughman 1999;Wright 2016). Besides using innate knowledge about principles of foraging behavior and individual learning strategies, young bats should have plenty opportunities to gain information from adults.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visits at artificial RFID flowers demonstrate that juvenile flower-visiting bats perform foraging flights apart from their mothers

2020

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During the transition from parental care to independent life, the development of adequate foraging skills is a major challenge for many juvenile mammals. However, participating in their parents’ knowledge by applying social learning strategies might facilitate this task. For several mammals, communal foraging of adults and offspring is suggested to be an important mechanism in mediating foraging-related information. For the large mammalian taxon of bats, only little is known about foraging-related social learning processes during ontogeny. It is often suggested that following their mothers during foraging flights would represent a valuable option for juveniles to socially learn about foraging, e.g., where to find resource-rich foraging patches, but explicit tests are scarce. In the present study, we investigated the foraging behavior of juvenile flower-visiting bats (Glossophaga soricina) in a dry forest in Costa Rica. We tested whether recently volant, but still nursed pups perform foraging flights alone, or whether pups follow their mothers, which would enable pups to socially learn where to feed. For that, we trained mothers and pups to feed from artificial flowers with a RFID reading system and, subsequently, conducted a field experiment to test whether RFID-tagged mothers and pups visit these flowers communally or independently. Unexpectedly, pups often encountered and visited artificial flowers near the day roost, while mothers rarely did, suggesting that they foraged somewhere further away. Our results demonstrate that still nursed juveniles perform foraging flights apart from their mothers and might learn about the spatial distribution of food without participating in their mother’s knowledge, for instance, by following other conspecifics or applying individual learning strategies. An initial potential lack of foraging success in this period is likely compensated by the ongoing maternal provisioning with breast milk and regurgitated nectar during daytime. Our results contribute to the growing body of research on the ontogeny of mammalian foraging behavior in general.

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Social information facilitates learning about novel food sources in adult flower-visiting bats

2023

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Incorporating novel food sources into their diet is crucial for animals in changing environments. Although the utilization of novel food sources can be learned individually, learning socially from experienced conspecifics may facilitate this task and enable a transmission of foraging-related innovations across a population. In anthropogenically modified habitats, bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) frequently adapt their feeding strategy to novel food sources, and corresponding social learning processes have been experimentally demonstrated in frugivorous and animalivorous species. However, comparable experiments are lacking for nectarivorous flower-visiting bats, even though their utilization of novel food sources in anthropogenically altered habitats is often observed and even discussed as the reason why bats are able to live in some areas. In the present study, we investigated whether adult flower-visiting bats may benefit from social information when learning about a novel food source. We conducted a demonstrator–observer dyad with wild Pallas’ long-tongued bats (Glossophaga soricina; Phyllostomidae: Glossophaginae) and hypothesized that naïve individuals would learn to exploit a novel food source faster when accompanied by an experienced demonstrator bat. Our results support this hypothesis and demonstrate flower-visiting bats to be capable of using social information to expand their dietary repertoire.

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Social Learning and Information Transfer in Bats: Conspecific Influence Regarding Roosts, Calls, and Food

Cited by 7 publications

References 79 publications

The challenge of detecting prey: Private and social information use in predatory bats

The challenge of detecting prey: Private and social information use in predatory bats

Visits at artificial RFID flowers demonstrate that juvenile flower-visiting bats perform foraging flights apart from their mothers

Social information facilitates learning about novel food sources in adult flower-visiting bats

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