Babbling in a vocal learning bat resembles human infant babbling

Fernandez, Ahana Aurora; Burchardt, Lara S.; Nagy, Martina; Knörnschild, Mirjam

doi:10.1126/science.abf9279

Cited by 31 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 51 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…Thus, nestlings gradually increased their output and repertoire of call types, followed by a pruning and refining period. This is consistent with the overproduction and selective attrition model of songbird and mammalian vocal development [1,2,27,41–43]. However, CORT-treated birds tended to skip the pruning (higher k ), but not the refining period (more spherical clusters, figure 2 f ) during the post-treatment period.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Vocal babbling in a wild parrot shows life history and endocrine affinities with human infants

et al. 2022

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Prelinguistic babbling is a critical phase in infant language development and is best understood in temperate songbirds where it occurs primarily in males at reproductive maturity and is modulated by sex steroids. Parrots of both sexes are icons of tropical vocal plasticity, but vocal babbling is unreported in this group and whether the endocrine system is involved is unknown. Here we show that vocal babbling is widespread in a wild parrot population in Venezuela, ensues in both sexes during the nestling stage, occurs amidst a captive audience of mixed-aged siblings, and is modulated by corticosteroids. Spectrographic analysis and machine learning found phoneme diversity and combinatorial capacity increased precipitously for the first week, thereafter, crystalizing into a smaller repertoire, consistent with the selective attrition model of language development. Corticosterone-treated nestlings differed from unmanipulated birds and sham controls in several acoustic properties and crystallized a larger repertoire post-treatment. Our findings indicate babbling occurs during an early life-history stage in which corticosteroids help catalyse the transition from a universal learning programme to one finely tuned for the prevailing ecological environment, a potentially convergent scenario in human prelinguistic development.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Vocal babbling in a wild parrot shows life history and endocrine affinities with human infants

et al. 2022

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“…Acoustic variability is reduced over vocal development in several species that learn to refine their vocalizations with experience [e.g., humans (Lee et al, 1999 ), birds (Ölveczky et al, 2011 ), and bats (Fernandez et al, 2021 )]. We found that prairie voles, a presumed vocal non-learning species, exhibited a similar pattern.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maturation of Social-Vocal Communication in Prairie Vole (Microtus ochrogaster) Pups

Warren

Campbell

Borie

et al. 2022

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Impairments in social communication are common among neurodevelopmental disorders. While traditional animal models have advanced our understanding of the physiological and pathological development of social behavior, they do not recapitulate some aspects where social communication is essential, such as biparental care and the ability to form long-lasting social bonds. Prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) have emerged as a valuable rodent model in social neuroscience because they naturally display these behaviors. Nonetheless, the role of vocalizations in prairie vole social communication remains unclear. Here, we studied the ontogeny [from postnatal days (P) 8–16] of prairie vole pup ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs), both when isolated and when the mother was present but physically unattainable. In contrast to other similarly sized rodents such as mice, prairie vole pups of all ages produced isolation USVs with a relatively low fundamental frequency between 22 and 50 kHz, often with strong harmonic structure. Males consistently emitted vocalizations with a lower frequency than females. With age, pups vocalized less, and the acoustic features of vocalizations (e.g., duration and bandwidth) became more stereotyped. Manipulating an isolated pup's social environment by introducing its mother significantly increased vocal production at older (P12–16) but not younger ages, when pups were likely unable to hear or see her. Our data provide the first indication of a maturation in social context-dependent vocal emission, which may facilitate more active acoustic communication. These results help lay a foundation for the use of prairie voles as a model organism to probe the role of early life experience in the development of social-vocal communication.

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“…Moreover, experimental field studies that cover a few seasons can reveal fascinating insights into the behavior of wild bats. This includes studies on communication and cognition in bats (e.g., Page and Ryan 2005 ; Hernández-Montero et al 2020 ; Fernandez et al 2021 ). Finally, even field studies addressing the effect of anthropogenic changes of the environment on bats, such as the impact of light pollution on habitat use, do not always require individualized long-term data (e.g., Stone et al 2009 ).…”

Section: Why Do We Need Long-term Field Studies On Bats?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The greater sac-winged bat has been studied for 50 years (M. Knörnschild et al, unpublished data), which makes it one of the best studied tropical bat species. This iconic species is well-known for its fascinating mating behavior as well as complex acoustic and olfactory communication (e.g., Nagy et al 2007 , 2012 ; Fernandez et al 2021 ). However, because of population crashes in the respective study populations in Costa Rica and Panama (Nagy et al 2012 ; M. Knörnschild et al, unpubl.…”

Section: Future Perspectives Of Long-term Field Studies On Batsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term field studies in bat research: importance for basic and applied research questions in animal behavior

Kerth

2022

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Animal species differ considerably in longevity. Among mammals, short-lived species such as shrews have a maximum lifespan of about a year, whereas long-lived species such as whales can live for more than two centuries. Because of their slow pace of life, long-lived species are typically of high conservation concern and of special scientific interest. This applies not only to large mammals such as whales, but also to small-sized bats and mole-rats. To understand the typically complex social behavior of long-lived mammals and protect their threatened populations, field studies that cover substantial parts of a species’ maximum lifespan are required. However, long-term field studies on mammals are an exception because the collection of individualized data requires considerable resources over long time periods in species where individuals can live for decades. Field studies that span decades do not fit well in the current career and funding regime in science. This is unfortunate, as the existing long-term studies on mammals yielded exciting insights into animal behavior and contributed data important for protecting their populations. Here, I present results of long-term field studies on the behavior, demography, and life history of bats, with a particular focus on my long-term studies on wild Bechstein’s bats. I show that long-term studies on individually marked populations are invaluable to understand the social system of bats, investigate the causes and consequences of their extraordinary longevity, and assess their responses to changing environments with the aim to efficiently protect these unique mammals in the face of anthropogenic global change.

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Babbling in a vocal learning bat resembles human infant babbling

Cited by 31 publications

References 51 publications

Vocal babbling in a wild parrot shows life history and endocrine affinities with human infants

Vocal babbling in a wild parrot shows life history and endocrine affinities with human infants

Maturation of Social-Vocal Communication in Prairie Vole (Microtus ochrogaster) Pups

Long-term field studies in bat research: importance for basic and applied research questions in animal behavior

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