Individual specific contact calls of pallid bats (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Antrozous pallidus</Emphasis>) attract conspecifics at roosting sites |
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Authors: | Bryan D Arnold Gerald S Wilkinson |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA |
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Abstract: | Contact calls are utilized by several bird and mammal species to maintain group cohesion and coordinate group movement. From
a signal design perspective, contact calls typically exhibit acoustic features that make them easily localizable and encode
information about individual or group identity. Pallid bats (Antrozous pallidus) are unusual among vespertilionids in that they often emit a loud, partially audible frequency-modulated social call several
times in rapid succession while in flight. This call appears to function as a contact call in that it is frequently given
when bats return from foraging and perform circular flights before entering a crevice roost. However, the degree to which
pallid bats respond to the calls of conspecifics and what information is provided in the call is unknown. Thus, the goal of
this study was to investigate pallid bat calling behavior to determine if calls attract roostmates or elicit responses from
them and provide sufficient information for individual recognition. In playback studies, we found that contact calls, elicit
calls, and approaches and that free-flying bats respond more to familiar than unfamiliar calls. In addition, analysis of frequency
and temporal measurements of calls collected from multiple sites and spectral cross correlation analysis of calls recorded
from the same radio-tagged bats on multiple evenings revealed that the frequency pattern of contact calls is highly repeatable
over time within individuals but exhibits significant differences among individuals. Thus, contact call structure appears
to be unique to individuals and stable through time, which makes these calls well-suited for roostmate recognition. |
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