Social Communication in Big Brown Bats

Abstract

Bats are social mammals that display a wide array of social communication calls. Among them, it is common for most bats species to emit distress, agonistic, appeasement and infant isolation calls. Big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) are no different: They are gregarious animals living in colonies that can comprise hundreds of individuals. These bats live in North America and, typically found roosting in man-made structures like barns and attics, are considered common. They are insectivorous laryngeal echolocators, and while their calls and associated brain mechanisms in echolocation are well-documented, much less is known about their neural systems for analyzing social vocalizations. In this work we review what we know about the social lives of big brown bats and propose how to consolidate the nomenclature used to describe their social vocalizations. Furthermore, we discuss the next steps in the characterization of the social structure of this species and how these studies will advance both research in neuroethology and ecology of big brown bats.

Spatially clustered neurons encode vocalization categories in the bat midbrain

“…We reasoned that applying an optical approach, which provides high spatiotemporal resolution, in a mammalian species that exhibits a rich repertoire of vocalization categories would allow us to test these possibilities. The big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, is an insectivorous bat species that stands out in the animal kingdom for its acoustic repertoire for echolocation-based navigation 15 and for social interactions with conspecifics 16,17 . E. fuscus moves in three dimensions through its environment and must rapidly distinguish between vocalizations produced for navigation or social interaction to successfully hunt and communicate.…”