Boughman JW, Wilkinson GS
Department of Zoology, University of Maryland, College Park
Anim Behav. 1998 Jun;55(6):1717-32. doi: 10.1006/anbe.1997.0721.
Individuals often benefit from identifying their prospective social partners. Some species that live in stable social groups discriminate between their group mates and others, basing this distinction on calls that differ among individuals. Vocalizations that differ between social groups are much less common, and few studies have demonstrated that animals use group-distinctive calls to identify group mates. Female greater spear-nosed bats, Phyllostomus hastatus, live in stable groups of unrelated bats and give audible frequency, broadband calls termed screech calls when departing from the roost and at foraging sites. Previous field observations suggested that bats give screech calls to coordinate movements among group members. Prior acoustic analyses of 12 acoustic variables found group differences but not individual differences. Here, we use the same acoustic variables to compare calls from three cave colonies, and find that calls differ between caves. We also report results from field and laboratory playback experiments designed to test whether bats use acoustic differences to discriminate calls from different colonies, groups or individuals. Results from field playbacks indicate that response depends on the cave of origin, indicating that bats can discriminate among calls from different caves. This discrimination ability may be based, in part, on whether calls are familiar or unfamiliar to the listening bats. Laboratory playbacks demonstrate that bats discriminate calls given by their group mates from calls given by other bats from the same cave irrespective of familiarity. However, these experiments provide no evidence that bats discriminate among individuals. Previous field work indicates that females that forage with social group mates may benefit from shared information about food or mutual defence of feeding sites. Indicating group membership is essential, since these benefits appear to be restricted to group mates. Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
个体通常会从识别潜在的社会伙伴中受益。一些生活在稳定社会群体中的物种能够区分群体成员和其他个体，这种区分基于个体之间不同的叫声。不同社会群体之间存在差异的叫声则更为罕见，很少有研究表明动物会使用群体特有的叫声来识别群体成员。雌性大矛鼻蝠（Phyllostomus hastatus）生活在由无亲缘关系的蝙蝠组成的稳定群体中，当它们离开栖息地和觅食地点时，会发出可听见的高频宽带叫声，即尖叫。此前的野外观察表明，蝙蝠发出尖叫是为了协调群体成员之间的行动。之前对12个声学变量的声学分析发现了群体差异，但没有发现个体差异。在这里，我们使用相同的声学变量来比较来自三个洞穴群落的叫声，发现不同洞穴的叫声存在差异。我们还报告了野外和实验室回放实验的结果，这些实验旨在测试蝙蝠是否利用声学差异来区分来自不同群落、群体或个体的叫声。野外回放实验的结果表明，反应取决于叫声的来源洞穴，这表明蝙蝠能够区分来自不同洞穴的叫声。这种区分能力可能部分基于叫声对于收听蝙蝠来说是熟悉还是陌生。实验室回放实验表明，蝙蝠能够区分群体成员发出的叫声和来自同一洞穴的其他蝙蝠发出的叫声，而与熟悉程度无关。然而，这些实验没有提供证据表明蝙蝠能够区分个体。此前的野外研究表明，与群体伙伴一起觅食的雌性蝙蝠可能会从关于食物的共享信息或觅食地点的相互防御中受益。表明群体成员身份至关重要，因为这些好处似乎仅限于群体伙伴。版权所有1998动物行为研究协会。版权所有1998动物行为研究协会。
