Department of Biology, University of Maryland College Park, MD, USA ; Department of Psychology, University of Maryland College Park, MD, USA.
Front Physiol. 2013 Aug 16;4:214. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2013.00214. eCollection 2013.
Vocalizations serving a variety of social functions have been reported in many bat species (Order Chiroptera). While echolocation by big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) has been the subject of extensive study, calls used by this species for communication have received comparatively little research attention. Here, we report on a rich repertoire of vocalizations produced by big brown bats in a large flight room equipped with synchronized high speed stereo video and audio recording equipment. Bats were studied individually and in pairs, while sex, age, and experience with a novel foraging task were varied. We used discriminant function analysis (DFA) to classify six different vocalizations that were recorded when two bats were present. Contingency table analyses revealed a higher prevalence of social calls when males were present, and some call types varied in frequency of emission based on trial type or bat age. Bats flew closer together around the time some social calls were emitted, indicating that communicative calls may be selectively produced when conspecifics fly near one another. These findings are the first reports of social calls from flying big brown bats and provide insight into the function of communicative vocalizations emitted by this species.
许多蝙蝠物种（翼手目）都会发出各种具有社会功能的叫声。尽管大褐蝙蝠（Eptesicus fuscus）的回声定位已被广泛研究，但该物种用于交流的叫声却相对较少受到关注。在这里，我们报告了在一个配备同步高速立体视频和音频记录设备的大型飞行室中，大褐蝙蝠发出的丰富的发声方式。蝙蝠个体或成对进行研究，同时考虑了性别、年龄和新觅食任务的经验。我们使用判别函数分析（DFA）对两只蝙蝠同时存在时记录的六种不同叫声进行分类。列联表分析显示，当雄性存在时，社交叫声更为常见，并且某些叫声类型的发出频率取决于试验类型或蝙蝠年龄。当某些社交叫声发出时，蝙蝠会飞得更近，这表明当同种蝙蝠彼此靠近飞行时，交际叫声可能会被选择性地发出。这些发现是关于飞行中的大褐蝙蝠发出社交叫声的首次报道，为了解该物种发出的交际叫声的功能提供了新的见解。
