López-Aguirre Camilo, Alam Bushra, Mian Muzna, Ratcliffe John M, Silcox Mary T
Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON M1C 1A4, Canada.
Department of Biology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Toronto, ON L5L 1C6, Canada.
iScience. 2025 Mar 4;28(4):112159. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.112159. eCollection 2025 Apr 18.
Bats exhibit remarkable ecological diversity, reflected in different species' sensory, cognitive and behavioral ecology. Bat brain volume has been linked to powered flight, laryngeal echolocation, and dietary transitions. Given the developmental trajectories and functional demands the skull and brain share, the bat skull-brain complex represents a unique means to better understand evolutionary processes and trade-offs. We assessed the brain-endocast correspondence across bats, considering whether changes in correspondence reflect ecological adaptations. We demonstrate that estimates of brain volume from both methods showed similar allometric trajectories, apart from those for cerebral cortex. Our results reveal a significant effect of diet and echolocation on brain-endocast correspondence of the cerebral cortex and olfactory bulbs, respectively. We suggest that shifts in the brain-endocast correspondence of the olfactory bulbs indicate an evolutionary trade-off between olfaction and echolocation. Our study offers a different perspective for future comparative neuroanatomical studies involving extinct and living species in museum collections.
蝙蝠表现出显著的生态多样性，这体现在不同物种的感官、认知和行为生态学中。蝙蝠的脑容量与动力飞行、喉部回声定位和饮食转变有关。鉴于头骨和大脑共享的发育轨迹和功能需求，蝙蝠的头骨-脑复合体是更好地理解进化过程和权衡的独特手段。我们评估了蝙蝠之间脑与脑腔模型的对应关系，考虑这种对应关系的变化是否反映了生态适应。我们证明，除了大脑皮层外，两种方法对头骨脑容量的估计都显示出相似的异速生长轨迹。我们的结果分别揭示了饮食和回声定位对大脑皮层和嗅球的脑与脑腔模型对应关系的显著影响。我们认为，嗅球的脑与脑腔模型对应关系的变化表明嗅觉和回声定位之间存在进化权衡。我们的研究为未来涉及博物馆收藏中的灭绝和现存物种的比较神经解剖学研究提供了不同的视角。
