The effects of cultural drift on geographic variation in echolocation calls of the Chinese rufous horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus sinicus)

Abstract

Drift, selection, or their combined effects commonly drive geographic variation in traits. Clarifying the relative roles of each process is a long‐standing research goal in evolutionary biology. Acoustic signals of bats are a phenotypic characteristic that plays an important role in social organization and species recognition. We extensively sampled the Chinese rufous horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus sinicus) throughout China and Vietnam and reconstructed a species phylogeny to better understand the patterns and causes of the geographic variation of acoustic signals. Our results showed that the resting frequency (RF) of calls varied with latitude, sex, and distance among different colony locations. RF differences were not correlated with genetic distance (based on only one nuclear locus and the mitochondrial locus), climatic factors (mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitable water), or body size, although differences in calls increased with distance among various populations. This suggests that cultural drift may play more important roles than genetic drift and acoustic adaptation in shaping acoustic differences within regions in R. sinicus.

Behaviour, biology, and evolution of vocal learning in bats

“…Hipposideros ruber [114] Phyllostomus discolor Social calls [48] Phyllostomus hastatus Contact calls [54] Pternotus parnelli CF sonar calls [34] Rhinolophus blasii [38] Rhinolophus capensis [41] Rhinolophus clivosus [115] Rhinolophus cornutus [32] Rhinolophus damarensis [116] Rhinolophus euryale [38] Rhinolophus ferrumequinum [35,38] Rhinolophus hipposideros [37,38] Rhinolophus mehelyi [38] Rhinolophus monoceros [33] Rhinolophus sinicus [36] Rhinonicteris auranta [40] Saccopteryx bilineata Male song [74] Thyroptera tricolor Contact calls [61] Group differences…”

“…The possibility that geographically isolated colonies of CF bats might then differ in RF by chance, similar to how differences in killer whale dialects have been hypothesized to arise [31], has been described as "cultural drift" and used to explain geographic differences in the RF of many CF bats [e.g. 32,[33][34][35][36]. Geographic variation in the RF of CF bats is widespread [37][38][39] and in some cases has been associated with morphological changes in nasal cavities [40,41] indicating that some frequency differences may have a morphological and presumably genetic basis.…”

Global song divergence in barn swallows (Hirundo rustica): exploring the roles of genetic, geographical and climatic distance in sympatry and allopatry

“…Prior work has shown sexual selection favouring the following characteristics: long tail streamers (the outermost tail feathers) in the European subspecies H. r. rustica (Møller, 1988;reviewed by Scordato & Safran, 2014); dark ventral plumage (but not long tail streamers) in the North American subspecies H. r. erythrogaster (Safran & McGraw, 2004;Safran, 2005;Neuman, Safran & Lovette, 2007;Eikenaar et al, 2011;Safran et al, 2016b); a combination of dark ventral colour and long tail streamers in an Israeli population of H. r. transitiva (Vortman et al, 2011(Vortman et al, , 2013; and darker throat colour in a Japanese population of H. r. gutturalis (Hasegawa et al, 2010). Despite this long Birds (Irwin et al, 2008;Sosa-López et al, 2013), frogs (Prohl et al, 2006Amézquita et al, 2009;Lee et al, 2016) and singing mice (Campbell et al, 2010) Cultural (Sun et al, 2013;Lin et al, 2015;Xie et al, 2017) and birds (Irwin et al, 2008;González & Ornelas, 2014) Observed: birds (Ince, Slater & Weismann, 1980;Payne et al, 1981;Nelson, Hallberg & Soha, 2004;Byers, Belinsky & Bentley, 2010) and whales (Deecke, Ford & Spong, 2000;Garland et al, Sun et al, 2013;Mutumi, Jacobs & Winker, 2016), birds (Morton, 1975;Ryan & Brenowitz, 1985;…”

Habitat Suitability Evaluation of the Chinese Horseshoe Bat (<i>R. sinicus</i>) in the Wuling Mountain Area Based on MAXENT Modelling

“…The Chinese horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus sinicus) is a typical cave-dwelling species; this bat remains in caves during the day but flies outside the caves to prey on insects (most insects are agricultural and forestry pests, mainly Lepidoptera and Coleoptera) at night. The main habitats of R. sinicus are the Himalayas, China, and Vietnam [4]. In China, R. sinicus mainly lives to the south of the Yangtze River [5].…”