Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Sensory Ecology Group, Eberhard-Gwinner-Strasse, 82319 Seewiesen, Germany.
Am Nat. 2010 Jul;176(1):72-82. doi: 10.1086/652993.
Recognizing species identity is crucial for many aspects of animal life and is often mediated by acoustic signals. Although most animals are able to distinguish acoustic signals of their own species from other sympatrically occurring species, it is yet unknown whether animals can distinguish among acoustic signals of different closely related sympatric species. In this context, echolocating bats are a particularly interesting model system: their echolocation system evolved primarily for spatial orientation and foraging, but recent studies indicate that echolocation also has an important communicative function. Yet, the role of echolocation calls for species discrimination and thus potentially for interspecific communication has not been investigated. Using a behavioral discrimination assay, we found that two species of wild horseshoe bats could discriminate calls of their own species from those of three sympatric congeneric species. We further show that the bats were able to discriminate between echolocation calls of different congeneric species from the local community. In both cases, discrimination ability was high despite strong overlap of species' call frequency bands. This study provides the first experimental evidence for species discrimination based on echolocation calls. On a more general level, it shows for the first time that animals can distinguish among acoustic signals of different closely related and ecologically similar species from their local community.
识别物种身份对于动物生活的许多方面至关重要，通常通过声学信号来介导。尽管大多数动物能够将自己物种的声学信号与其他同域发生的物种区分开来，但目前尚不清楚动物是否能够区分不同近缘同域物种的声学信号。在这种情况下，回声定位蝙蝠是一个特别有趣的模型系统：它们的回声定位系统主要进化用于空间定向和觅食，但最近的研究表明，回声定位也具有重要的交流功能。然而，回声定位在物种识别中的作用，因此可能在种间交流中的作用尚未得到研究。使用行为判别测定法，我们发现两种野生马蹄蝠能够从三种同域近缘物种的叫声中辨别出自己物种的叫声。我们进一步表明，蝙蝠能够从当地社区的不同近缘物种的回声定位叫声中进行区分。在这两种情况下，尽管物种叫声的频带重叠很强，但辨别能力很高。这项研究提供了基于回声定位叫声进行物种识别的第一个实验证据。在更广泛的层面上，它首次表明动物能够从其本地社区中区分不同近缘且生态相似的物种的声学信号。
