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Flying bats use serial sampling to locate odour sources
Olfactory tracking generally sacrifices speed for sensitivity, but some fast-moving animals appear surprisingly efficient at foraging by smell. Here, we analysed the olfactory tracking strategies of flying bats foraging for fruit. Fruit- and nectar-feeding bats use odour cues to find food despite th...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8526173/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34665992 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0430 |
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author | Brokaw, Alyson F. Davis, Evynn Page, Rachel A. Smotherman, Michael |
author_facet | Brokaw, Alyson F. Davis, Evynn Page, Rachel A. Smotherman, Michael |
author_sort | Brokaw, Alyson F. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Olfactory tracking generally sacrifices speed for sensitivity, but some fast-moving animals appear surprisingly efficient at foraging by smell. Here, we analysed the olfactory tracking strategies of flying bats foraging for fruit. Fruit- and nectar-feeding bats use odour cues to find food despite the sensory challenges derived from fast flight speeds and echolocation. We trained Jamaican fruit-eating bats (Artibeus jamaicensis) to locate an odour reward and reconstructed their flight paths in three-dimensional space. Results confirmed that bats relied upon olfactory cues to locate a reward. Flight paths revealed a combination of odour- and memory-guided search strategies. During ‘inspection flights’, bats significantly reduced flight speeds and flew within approximately 6 cm of possible targets to evaluate the presence or absence of the odour cue. This behaviour combined with echolocation explains how bats maximize foraging efficiency while compensating for trade-offs associated with olfactory detection and locomotion. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8526173 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85261732021-10-25 Flying bats use serial sampling to locate odour sources Brokaw, Alyson F. Davis, Evynn Page, Rachel A. Smotherman, Michael Biol Lett Animal Behaviour Olfactory tracking generally sacrifices speed for sensitivity, but some fast-moving animals appear surprisingly efficient at foraging by smell. Here, we analysed the olfactory tracking strategies of flying bats foraging for fruit. Fruit- and nectar-feeding bats use odour cues to find food despite the sensory challenges derived from fast flight speeds and echolocation. We trained Jamaican fruit-eating bats (Artibeus jamaicensis) to locate an odour reward and reconstructed their flight paths in three-dimensional space. Results confirmed that bats relied upon olfactory cues to locate a reward. Flight paths revealed a combination of odour- and memory-guided search strategies. During ‘inspection flights’, bats significantly reduced flight speeds and flew within approximately 6 cm of possible targets to evaluate the presence or absence of the odour cue. This behaviour combined with echolocation explains how bats maximize foraging efficiency while compensating for trade-offs associated with olfactory detection and locomotion. The Royal Society 2021-10-20 /pmc/articles/PMC8526173/ /pubmed/34665992 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0430 Text en © 2021 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Animal Behaviour Brokaw, Alyson F. Davis, Evynn Page, Rachel A. Smotherman, Michael Flying bats use serial sampling to locate odour sources |
title | Flying bats use serial sampling to locate odour sources |
title_full | Flying bats use serial sampling to locate odour sources |
title_fullStr | Flying bats use serial sampling to locate odour sources |
title_full_unstemmed | Flying bats use serial sampling to locate odour sources |
title_short | Flying bats use serial sampling to locate odour sources |
title_sort | flying bats use serial sampling to locate odour sources |
topic | Animal Behaviour |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8526173/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34665992 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0430 |
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