The origins and diversity of bat songs

Smotherman, Michael; Knörnschild, Mirjam; Smarsh, Grace C.; Bohn, Kirsten M.

doi:10.1007/s00359-016-1105-0

Cited by 53 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 129 publications

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“…Sounds produced by orthopterans and cicadas (e.g., Robinson & Hall 2002), and even by flies (e.g., Kyriacou & Hall 1986;von Philipsborn et al 2011) and diplopods (Wesener et al 2011) are often named songs as well, even if these are much more stereotyped and less complex than songbird vocalizations. In mammals, human speech apart, vocalizations are more commonly referred to as calls, while the complex vocalizations of gibbons and bats are named songs by some authors (e.g., Cowlishaw 1992; Clarke et al 2006;Smotherman et al 2016). Subaquatic sounds can be emitted by insects (e.g., Sueur et al 2011), crustaceans (e.g., Popper et al 2001), cetaceans and other marine mammals (e.g., Edds-Walton 1997), anurans (Wells 2007), and by a multitude of fish species (Sisneros et al 2016).…”

Section: Units and Terms Recommended For The Description Of Anuran Callsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of bioacoustics in anuran taxonomy: theory, terminology, methods and recommendations for best practice

Köhler

Jansen

Rodríguez³

et al. 2017

Zootaxa

459

410

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Vocalizations of anuran amphibians have received much attention in studies of behavioral ecology and physiology, but also provide informative characters for identifying and delimiting species. We here review the terminology and variation of frog calls from a perspective of integrative taxonomy, and provide hands-on protocols for recording, analyzing, comparing, interpreting and describing these sounds. Our focus is on advertisement calls, which serve as premating isolation mechanisms and, therefore, convey important taxonomic information. We provide recommendations for terminology of frog vocalizations, with call, note and pulse being the fundamental subunits to be used in descriptions and comparisons. However, due to the complexity and diversity of these signals, an unequivocal application of the terms call and note can be challenging. We therefore provide two coherent concepts that either follow a note-centered approach (defining uninterrupted units of sound as notes, and their entirety as call) or a call-centered approach (defining uninterrupted units as call whenever they are separated by long silent intervals) in terminology. Based on surveys of literature, we show that numerous call traits can be highly variable within and between individuals of one species. Despite idiosyncrasies of species and higher taxa, the duration of calls or notes, pulse rate within notes, and number of pulses per note appear to be more static within individuals and somewhat less affected by temperature. Therefore, these variables might often be preferable as taxonomic characters over call rate or note rate, which are heavily influenced by various factors. Dominant frequency is also comparatively static and only weakly affected by temperature, but depends strongly on body size. As with other taxonomic characters, strong call divergence is typically indicative of species-level differences, whereas call similarities of two populations are no evidence for them being conspecific. Taxonomic conclusions can especially be drawn when the general advertisement call structure of two candidate species is radically different and qualitative call differences are thus observed. On the other hand, quantitative differences in call traits might substantially vary within and among conspecific populations, and require careful evaluation and analysis. We provide guidelines for the taxonomic interpretation of advertisement call differences in sympatric and allopatric situations, and emphasize the need for an integrative use of multiple datasets (bio-acoustics, morphology, genetics), particularly for allopatric scenarios. We show that small-sized frogs often emit calls with frequency components in the ultrasound spectrum, although it is unlikely that these high frequencies are of biological relevance for the majority of them, and we illustrate that detection of upper harmonics depends also on recording distance because higher frequencies are attenuated more strongly. Bioacoustics remains a prime approach in integrative taxonomy of anurans if uncertainty due to possible intraspecific variation and technical artifacts is adequately considered and acknowledged.

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Section: Units and Terms Recommended For The Description Of Anuran Callsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of bioacoustics in anuran taxonomy: theory, terminology, methods and recommendations for best practice

Köhler

Jansen

Rodríguez³

et al. 2017

Zootaxa

459

410

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“…Males may emit social calls to advertise their presence or attract females (Lundberg & Gerell, ; Barak & Yom‐Tov, ; Barlow & Jones, ; Gebhard, ; Schmidt‐French & Lollar, ). The structure of these calls varies from single signals to batches of calls organized into ‘songs’ (Smotherman et al, ). Songs are widespread in mammals, birds, frogs and insects (Searcy & Andersson, ; Gerhardt & Huber, ), and their complexity is thought to convey more information to females and potential competitors than simple single‐element vocalizations (Freeberg, Dunbar & Ord, ).…”

Section: Why Do Bats Communicate?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This also holds true for bats, whose advertisement songs, emitted either in flight or from roosts (Jaelkovà, Horacek & Bartonicka, 2008), are often complex [e.g. Pipistrellus nathusii (Jaelkovà & Horacek, 2011); H. savii (Nardone, Ancillotto & Russo, 2017)] and arranged in motifs featuring trills, chirps and buzzes (see Bohn et al, 2008;Smotherman et al, 2016). The elements composing mating songs appear to be stereotyped and possibly genetically inherited, and variation across individuals is achieved by combining different components within the song (Bohn et al, 2009a).…”

Section: (C) Recognition Of Potential Sexual Partners and Mate Attracmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social communication in bats

2018

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Bats represent one of the most diverse mammalian orders, not only in terms of species numbers, but also in their ecology and life histories. Many species are known to use ephemeral and/or unpredictable resources that require substantial investment to find and defend, and also engage in social interactions, thus requiring significant levels of social coordination. To accomplish these tasks, bats must be able to communicate; there is now substantial evidence that demonstrates the complexity of bat communication and the varied ways in which bats solve some of the problems associated with their unique life histories. However, while the study of communication in bats is rapidly growing, it still lags behind other taxa. Here we provide a comprehensive overview of communication in bats, from the reasons why they communicate to the diversity and application of different signal modalities. The most widespread form of communication is the transmission of a signaller's characteristics, such as species identity, sex, individual identity, group membership, social status and body condition, and because many species of bats can rely little on vision due to their nocturnal lifestyles, it is assumed that sound and olfaction are particularly important signalling modes. For example, research suggests that secretions from specialized glands, often in combination with urine and saliva, are responsible for species recognition in several species. These olfactory signals may also convey information about sex and colony membership. Olfaction may be used in combination with sound, particularly in species that emit constant frequency (CF) echolocation calls, to recognize conspecifics from heterospecifics, yet their simple structure and high frequency do not allow much information of individual identity to be conveyed over long distances. By contrast, social calls may encode a larger number of cues of individual identity, and their lower frequencies increase their range of detection. Social calls are also known to deter predators, repel competitors from foraging patches, attract group mates to roost sites, coordinate foraging activities, and are used during courtship. In addition to sound, visual displays such as wing flapping or hovering may be used during courtship, and swarming around roost sites may serve as a visual cue of roost location. However, visual communication in bats still remains a poorly studied signal modality. Finally, the most common form of tactile communication known in bats is social grooming, which may be used to signal reproductive condition, but also to facilitate and strengthen cooperative interactions. Overall, this review demonstrates the rapid advances made in the study of bat social communication during recent years, and also identifies topics that require further study, particularly those that may allow us to understand adaptation to rapidly changing environmental conditions.

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“…Whether a suppression similar to the one described here will occur in response to vocalization sequences that contain non-redundant spectro-temporal designs remains unknown. In bats, non-redundant vocalization sequences have been reported in the context of chase flights, courtship, and territorial singing (Pfalzer & Kusch, 2003;Smotherman et al, 2016).…”

Section: Ac Neurons Track the Slow Rhythm Of Natural Distress Sequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Processing of temporally patterned sounds in the auditory cortex of Seba's short‐tailed bat,Carollia perspicillata

Martin

García‐Rosales

Beetz

et al. 2017

Eur J of Neuroscience

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This article presents a characterization of cortical responses to artificial and natural temporally patterned sounds in the bat species Carollia perspicillata, a species that produces vocalizations at rates above 50 Hz. Multi-unit activity was recorded in three different experiments. In the first experiment, amplitude-modulated (AM) pure tones were used as stimuli to drive auditory cortex (AC) units. AC units of both ketamine-anesthetized and awake bats could lock their spikes to every cycle of the stimulus modulation envelope, but only if the modulation frequency was below 22 Hz. In the second experiment, two identical communication syllables were presented at variable intervals. Suppressed responses to the lagging syllable were observed, unless the second syllable followed the first one with a delay of at least 80 ms (i.e., 12.5 Hz repetition rate). In the third experiment, natural distress vocalization sequences were used as stimuli to drive AC units. Distress sequences produced by C. perspicillata contain bouts of syllables repeated at intervals of ~60 ms (16 Hz). Within each bout, syllables are repeated at intervals as short as 14 ms (~71 Hz). Cortical units could follow the slow temporal modulation flow produced by the occurrence of multisyllabic bouts, but not the fast acoustic flow created by rapid syllable repetition within the bouts. Taken together, our results indicate that even in fast vocalizing animals, such as bats, cortical neurons can only track the temporal structure of acoustic streams modulated at frequencies lower than 22 Hz.

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The origins and diversity of bat songs

Cited by 53 publications

References 129 publications

The use of bioacoustics in anuran taxonomy: theory, terminology, methods and recommendations for best practice

The use of bioacoustics in anuran taxonomy: theory, terminology, methods and recommendations for best practice

Social communication in bats

Processing of temporally patterned sounds in the auditory cortex of Seba's short‐tailed bat,Carollia perspicillata

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