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The benefits of insect-swarm hunting to echolocating bats, and its influence on the evolution of bat echolocation signals
Predation on swarms of prey, especially using visual information, has drawn much interest in studies of collective movement. Surprisingly, in the field of biosonar this aspect of prey detection, which is probably very common, has received little to no attention. Here, we combine computer simulations...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6907744/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31830029 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006873 |
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author | Boonman, Arjan Fenton, Brock Yovel, Yossi |
author_facet | Boonman, Arjan Fenton, Brock Yovel, Yossi |
author_sort | Boonman, Arjan |
collection | PubMed |
description | Predation on swarms of prey, especially using visual information, has drawn much interest in studies of collective movement. Surprisingly, in the field of biosonar this aspect of prey detection, which is probably very common, has received little to no attention. Here, we combine computer simulations and actual echo measurements to accurately estimate the echo sound pressure of insect swarms of different size and density. We show that swarm echo sound pressure increases with 3dB for every doubling of insect number, irrespective of swarm density. Thus swarms will be much easier to detect than single insects. Many of the insects bats eat are so small that they are only detectable by echolocation at very short distances. By focusing on detection of swarms of insects, a bat may increase its operating range and diversify its diet. Interestingly, interference between the sound waves reflected from a swarm of insects can sometimes result in echoes that are much weaker than echoes from single insects. We show that bats can reduce this problem by increasing the bandwidth of their echolocation calls. Specifically, a bandwidth of 3–8 kHz would guarantee receiving loud echoes from any angle relative to the swarm. Indeed, many bat species, and specifically bats hunting in open spaces, where swarms are abundant, use echolocation signals with a bandwidth of several kHz. Our results might also explain how the first echolocating bats that probably had limited echolocation abilities, could detect insects through swarm hunting. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6907744 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-69077442019-12-27 The benefits of insect-swarm hunting to echolocating bats, and its influence on the evolution of bat echolocation signals Boonman, Arjan Fenton, Brock Yovel, Yossi PLoS Comput Biol Research Article Predation on swarms of prey, especially using visual information, has drawn much interest in studies of collective movement. Surprisingly, in the field of biosonar this aspect of prey detection, which is probably very common, has received little to no attention. Here, we combine computer simulations and actual echo measurements to accurately estimate the echo sound pressure of insect swarms of different size and density. We show that swarm echo sound pressure increases with 3dB for every doubling of insect number, irrespective of swarm density. Thus swarms will be much easier to detect than single insects. Many of the insects bats eat are so small that they are only detectable by echolocation at very short distances. By focusing on detection of swarms of insects, a bat may increase its operating range and diversify its diet. Interestingly, interference between the sound waves reflected from a swarm of insects can sometimes result in echoes that are much weaker than echoes from single insects. We show that bats can reduce this problem by increasing the bandwidth of their echolocation calls. Specifically, a bandwidth of 3–8 kHz would guarantee receiving loud echoes from any angle relative to the swarm. Indeed, many bat species, and specifically bats hunting in open spaces, where swarms are abundant, use echolocation signals with a bandwidth of several kHz. Our results might also explain how the first echolocating bats that probably had limited echolocation abilities, could detect insects through swarm hunting. Public Library of Science 2019-12-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6907744/ /pubmed/31830029 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006873 Text en © 2019 Boonman et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Boonman, Arjan Fenton, Brock Yovel, Yossi The benefits of insect-swarm hunting to echolocating bats, and its influence on the evolution of bat echolocation signals |
title | The benefits of insect-swarm hunting to echolocating bats, and its influence on the evolution of bat echolocation signals |
title_full | The benefits of insect-swarm hunting to echolocating bats, and its influence on the evolution of bat echolocation signals |
title_fullStr | The benefits of insect-swarm hunting to echolocating bats, and its influence on the evolution of bat echolocation signals |
title_full_unstemmed | The benefits of insect-swarm hunting to echolocating bats, and its influence on the evolution of bat echolocation signals |
title_short | The benefits of insect-swarm hunting to echolocating bats, and its influence on the evolution of bat echolocation signals |
title_sort | benefits of insect-swarm hunting to echolocating bats, and its influence on the evolution of bat echolocation signals |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6907744/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31830029 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006873 |
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