Safi Kamran, Kerth Gerald
Zoologisches Institut, Universität Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland.
Am Nat. 2007 Sep;170(3):465-72. doi: 10.1086/520116. Epub 2007 Jul 19.
The evolution of sociality is a central theme in evolutionary biology. The vast majority of bats are social, which has been explained in terms of the benefits of communal breeding. However, the causes for segregated male groups remain unknown. In a comparative study, we tested whether diet and morphological adaptations to specific foraging styles, two factors known to influence the occurrence of information transfer, can predict male sociality. Our results suggest that the species most likely to benefit from information transfer--namely, those preying on ephemeral insects and with morphological adaptations to feeding in open habitat--are more likely to form male groups. Our findings also indicate that solitary life was the ancestral state of males and sociality evolved in several lineages. Beyond their significance for explaining the existence of male groups in bats, our findings highlight the importance of information transfer in the evolution of animal sociality.
社会性的演化是进化生物学的核心主题。绝大多数蝙蝠是社会性动物，这已从群体繁殖的益处方面得到了解释。然而，雄性群体隔离的原因仍然未知。在一项比较研究中，我们测试了饮食以及对特定觅食方式的形态适应这两个已知会影响信息传递发生的因素，是否能够预测雄性的社会性。我们的结果表明，最有可能从信息传递中受益的物种——即那些捕食短暂出现的昆虫且在开阔栖息地觅食具有形态适应特征的物种——更有可能形成雄性群体。我们的研究结果还表明，独居生活是雄性的原始状态，社会性在几个谱系中演化而来。除了对解释蝙蝠中雄性群体的存在具有重要意义外，我们的研究结果还凸显了信息传递在动物社会性演化中的重要性。
