Chen Yi, Liu Qi, Su Qianqian, Sun Yunxiao, Peng Xingwen, He Xiangyang, Zhang Libiao
Guangdong Entomological Institute, Guangzhou, China.
Guangdong Public Laboratory of Wild Animal Conservation and Utilization, Guangzhou, China.
PLoS One. 2016 Mar 30;11(3):e0151382. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0151382. eCollection 2016.
Each animal population has its own acoustic signature which facilitates identification, communication and reproduction. The sonar signals of bats can convey social information, such as species identity and contextual information. The goal of this study was to determine whether bats adjust their echolocation call structures to mutually recognize and communicate when they encounter the bats from different colonies. We used the intermediate leaf-nosed bats (Hipposideros larvatus) as a case study to investigate the variations of echolocation calls when bats from one colony were introduced singly into the home cage of a new colony or two bats from different colonies were cohabitated together for one month. Our experiments showed that the single bat individual altered its peak frequency of echolocation calls to approach the call of new colony members and two bats from different colonies adjusted their call frequencies toward each other to a similar frequency after being chronically cohabitated. These results indicate that the 'compromise' in echolocation calls might be used to ensure effective mutual communication among bats.
每个动物种群都有其独特的声学特征，这有助于识别、交流和繁殖。蝙蝠的声纳信号可以传达社会信息，比如物种身份和情境信息。本研究的目的是确定蝙蝠在遇到来自不同群体的蝙蝠时，是否会调整其回声定位叫声结构以相互识别和交流。我们以中蹄蝠（Hipposideros larvatus）为例，研究当将来自一个群体的蝙蝠单独放入新群体的饲养笼中，或者将来自不同群体的两只蝙蝠共同饲养一个月时，回声定位叫声的变化。我们的实验表明，单独的蝙蝠个体改变了其回声定位叫声的峰值频率，以接近新群体成员的叫声，并且来自不同群体的两只蝙蝠在长期共同饲养后，会将它们的叫声频率相互调整到相似的频率。这些结果表明，回声定位叫声中的“妥协”可能被用来确保蝙蝠之间有效的相互交流。
