Social learning of a novel foraging task by big brown bats, Eptesicus fuscus

Wright, Genevieve Spanjer; Wilkinson, Gerald S.; Moss, Cynthia F.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.07.044

Cited by 38 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(42 reference statements)

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“…Female Bechstein's bats and greater horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum (Schreber, 1774)) inherit their foraging areas from their mothers (Kerth et al 2001;Rossiter et al 2002). Wright et al (2011) found that the acquisition of a novel foraging task (catching a tethered mealworm) in the big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus (Palisot de Beauvois, 1796)) is strongly enhanced by interaction with an experienced conspecific compared with individual trial and error learning. In evening bats (Nycticeius humeralis (Rafinesque, 1818)), naïve individuals follow experienced conspecifics to new food resources from the roost (Wilkinson 1992).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Social learning within and across species: information transfer in mouse-eared bats

et al. 2014

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Social learning describes information transfer between individuals through observation or direct interaction. Bats can live and forage in large groups, sometimes comprising several species, and are thus well suited for investigations of both intraspecific and interspecific information transfer. Although social learning has been documented within several bat species, it has not been shown to occur between species. Furthermore, it is not fully understood what level of interaction between individuals is necessary for social learning in bats. We address these questions by comparing the efficiency of observation versus interaction in intraspecific social learning and by considering interspecific social learning in sympatric bat species. Observers learned from demonstrators to identify food sources using a light cue. We show that intraspecific social learning exists in the greater mouse-eared bat (Myotis myotis (Borkhausen, 1797)) and that direct interaction with a demonstrator more efficiently leads to information transfer than observational learning alone. We also found evidence for interspecific information transfer from M. myotis to the lesser mouse-eared bat (Myotis oxygnathus Monticelli, 1885). Additionally, we opportunistically retested one individual that we recaptured from the wild 1 year after initial learning and found long-term memory of the trained association. Our study adds to the understanding of learning, information transfer, and long-term memory in wild-living animals.Résumé : L'apprentissage social désigne le transfert d'information entre individus par l'observation ou l'interaction directe. Les chauves-souris peuvent vivre et s'alimenter en grands groupes comptant parfois plusieurs espèces et se prêtent donc à l'étude du transfert d'information tant intraspécifique qu'interspécifique. Si l'apprentissage social est bien documenté chez plusieurs espèces de chauves-souris, il n'a pas été démontré qu'il s'opère entre espèces. En outre, le niveau d'interaction entre individus nécessaire à l'apprentissage social chez les chauves-souris n'est pas encore entièrement compris. Nous abordons ces questions en comparant l'efficacité de l'observation et celle de l'interaction dans l'apprentissage social intraspécifique et en examinant l'apprentissage social interspécifique chez des espèces de chauves-souris sympatriques. Dans les manipulations, les observateurs apprenaient de démonstrateurs à identifier des sources de nourriture à l'aide d'un signal lumineux. Nous démontrons que l'apprentissage social intraspécifique existe chez le grand murin (Myotis myotis (Borkhausen, 1797)) et que l'interaction directe avec un démonstrateur se traduit par un transfert d'information plus efficace que l'apprentissage par la seule observation. Nous avons également noté des signes de transfert d'information interspécifique de M. myotis à petit murin (Myotis oxygnathus Monticelli, 1885). Nous avons en outre réexaminé de manière opportuniste un individu recapturé à l'état sauvage un an après l'apprentissage initial et constaté qu'...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Social learning within and across species: information transfer in mouse-eared bats

et al. 2014

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“…The availability of foraging information has been proposed as an advantage leading to the evolution of bat coloniality [19], and a number of studies have demonstrated social learning in bats [20][21][22][23]. The fringe-lipped bat, Trachops cirrhosus, is a Neotropical carnivore that hunts frog and insect prey by eavesdropping on the prey's mating calls [24,25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When to approach novel prey cues? Social learning strategies in frog-eating bats

Jones¹,

Ryan²,

Flores

et al. 2013

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Animals can use different sources of information when making decisions. Foraging animals often have access to both self-acquired and socially acquired information about prey. The fringe-lipped bat, Trachops cirrhosus, hunts frogs by approaching the calls that frogs produce to attract mates. We examined how the reliability of self-acquired prey cues affects social learning of novel prey cues. We trained bats to associate an artificial acoustic cue (mobile phone ringtone) with food rewards. Bats were assigned to treatments in which the trained cue was either an unreliable indicator of reward (rewarded 50% of the presentations) or a reliable indicator (rewarded 100% of the presentations), and they were exposed to a conspecific tutor foraging on a reliable (rewarded 100%) novel cue or to the novel cue with no tutor. Bats whose trained cue was unreliable and who had a tutor were significantly more likely to preferentially approach the novel cue when compared with bats whose trained cue was reliable, and to bats that had no tutor. Reliability of self-acquired prey cues therefore affects social learning of novel prey cues by frog-eating bats. Examining when animals use social information to learn about novel prey is key to understanding the social transmission of foraging innovations.

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“…Echolocation signals are not directed at an external receiver per se; nevertheless, they can be used as an information source by eavesdroppers [10 -12]. Echolocation calls indicate both the presence and the feeding activity of bats; therefore, they can inform other bats in hearing distance about good hunting grounds [13,14], new foraging tasks [15] or roost sites [16]. A growing body of evidence indicates that social information about the calling bat can be encoded in echolocation calls as well (reviewed in [11,17]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bat echolocation calls facilitate social communication

et al. 2012

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Bat echolocation is primarily used for orientation and foraging but also holds great potential for social communication. The communicative function of echolocation calls is still largely unstudied, especially in the wild. Eavesdropping on vocal signatures encoding social information in echolocation calls has not, to our knowledge, been studied in free-living bats so far. We analysed echolocation calls of the polygynous bat Saccopteryx bilineata and found pronounced vocal signatures encoding sex and individual identity. We showed experimentally that free-living males discriminate approaching male and female conspecifics solely based on their echolocation calls. Males always produced aggressive vocalizations when hearing male echolocation calls and courtship vocalizations when hearing female echolocation calls; hence, they responded with complex social vocalizations in the appropriate social context. Our study demonstrates that social information encoded in bat echolocation calls plays a crucial and hitherto underestimated role for eavesdropping conspecifics and thus facilitates social communication in a highly mobile nocturnal mammal.

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Social learning of a novel foraging task by big brown bats, Eptesicus fuscus

Cited by 38 publications

References 35 publications

Social learning within and across species: information transfer in mouse-eared bats

Social learning within and across species: information transfer in mouse-eared bats

When to approach novel prey cues? Social learning strategies in frog-eating bats

Bat echolocation calls facilitate social communication

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