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Effects of Different-Syllable Aggressive Calls on Food Intake and Gene Expression in Vespertilio sinensis

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Most social animals have to face the social stress caused by territorial conflicts. To save costs, social animals use acoustic signals instead of physical fights to solve conflicts. Bats live in clusters and frequently produce aggressive calls of different syllables, but little is kn...

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Autores principales: Li, Xin, Zhou, Ruizhu, Feng, Lei, Wang, Hui, Feng, Jiang, Wu, Hui
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9854892/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36670846
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani13020306
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author Li, Xin
Zhou, Ruizhu
Feng, Lei
Wang, Hui
Feng, Jiang
Wu, Hui
author_facet Li, Xin
Zhou, Ruizhu
Feng, Lei
Wang, Hui
Feng, Jiang
Wu, Hui
author_sort Li, Xin
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Most social animals have to face the social stress caused by territorial conflicts. To save costs, social animals use acoustic signals instead of physical fights to solve conflicts. Bats live in clusters and frequently produce aggressive calls of different syllables, but little is known about the effects of social stress represented by different types of aggressive calls on the physiology of bats. Here, we conducted playback experiments to investigate the effects of two types of aggressive calls representing different competitive intentions on food intake, body mass, hormone levels, and gene expression in Asian particolored bats (Vespertilio sinensis). Our results showed that different types of aggressive calls exerted different physiological effects on social animals. Interestingly, we found that more aggressive calls do not have a greater impact on bats. ABSTRACT: Social animals enjoy colony benefits but are also exposed to social stress, which affects their physiology in many ways, including alterations to their energy intake, metabolism, and even gene expression. Aggressive calls are defined as calls emitted during aggressive conflicts between individuals of the same species over resources, such as territory, food, or mates. Aggressive calls produced by animals in different aggressive states indicate different levels of competitive intentions. However, whether aggressive calls produced in different aggressive states exert different physiological effects on animals has yet to be determined. Importantly, bats live in clusters and frequently produce aggressive calls of different syllables, thus providing an ideal model for investigating this question. Here, we conducted playback experiments to investigate the effects of two types of aggressive calls representing different competitive intentions on food intake, body mass, corticosterone (CORT) concentration, and gene expression in Vespertilio sinensis. We found that the playback of both aggressive calls resulted in a significant decrease in food intake and body mass, and bats in the tonal-syllable aggressive-calls (tonal calls) playback group exhibited a more significant decrease when compared to the noisy-syllable aggressive-calls (noisy calls) playback group. Surprisingly, the weight and food intake in the white-noise group decreased the most when compared to before playback. Transcriptome results showed that, when compared to the control and white-noise groups, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) involved in energy and metabolism were detected in the noisy-calls playback group, and DEGs involved in immunity and disease were detected in the tonal-calls playback group. These results suggested that the playback of the two types of aggressive calls differentially affected body mass, food intake, and gene expression in bats. Notably, bat responses to external-noise playback (synthetic white noise) were more pronounced than the playback of the two aggressive calls, suggesting that bats have somewhat adapted to internal aggressive calls. Comparative transcriptome analysis suggested that the playback of the two syllabic aggressive calls disrupted the immune system and increased the risk of disease in bats. This study provides new insight into how animals differ in response to different social stressors and anthropogenic noise.
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spelling pubmed-98548922023-01-21 Effects of Different-Syllable Aggressive Calls on Food Intake and Gene Expression in Vespertilio sinensis Li, Xin Zhou, Ruizhu Feng, Lei Wang, Hui Feng, Jiang Wu, Hui Animals (Basel) Article SIMPLE SUMMARY: Most social animals have to face the social stress caused by territorial conflicts. To save costs, social animals use acoustic signals instead of physical fights to solve conflicts. Bats live in clusters and frequently produce aggressive calls of different syllables, but little is known about the effects of social stress represented by different types of aggressive calls on the physiology of bats. Here, we conducted playback experiments to investigate the effects of two types of aggressive calls representing different competitive intentions on food intake, body mass, hormone levels, and gene expression in Asian particolored bats (Vespertilio sinensis). Our results showed that different types of aggressive calls exerted different physiological effects on social animals. Interestingly, we found that more aggressive calls do not have a greater impact on bats. ABSTRACT: Social animals enjoy colony benefits but are also exposed to social stress, which affects their physiology in many ways, including alterations to their energy intake, metabolism, and even gene expression. Aggressive calls are defined as calls emitted during aggressive conflicts between individuals of the same species over resources, such as territory, food, or mates. Aggressive calls produced by animals in different aggressive states indicate different levels of competitive intentions. However, whether aggressive calls produced in different aggressive states exert different physiological effects on animals has yet to be determined. Importantly, bats live in clusters and frequently produce aggressive calls of different syllables, thus providing an ideal model for investigating this question. Here, we conducted playback experiments to investigate the effects of two types of aggressive calls representing different competitive intentions on food intake, body mass, corticosterone (CORT) concentration, and gene expression in Vespertilio sinensis. We found that the playback of both aggressive calls resulted in a significant decrease in food intake and body mass, and bats in the tonal-syllable aggressive-calls (tonal calls) playback group exhibited a more significant decrease when compared to the noisy-syllable aggressive-calls (noisy calls) playback group. Surprisingly, the weight and food intake in the white-noise group decreased the most when compared to before playback. Transcriptome results showed that, when compared to the control and white-noise groups, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) involved in energy and metabolism were detected in the noisy-calls playback group, and DEGs involved in immunity and disease were detected in the tonal-calls playback group. These results suggested that the playback of the two types of aggressive calls differentially affected body mass, food intake, and gene expression in bats. Notably, bat responses to external-noise playback (synthetic white noise) were more pronounced than the playback of the two aggressive calls, suggesting that bats have somewhat adapted to internal aggressive calls. Comparative transcriptome analysis suggested that the playback of the two syllabic aggressive calls disrupted the immune system and increased the risk of disease in bats. This study provides new insight into how animals differ in response to different social stressors and anthropogenic noise. MDPI 2023-01-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9854892/ /pubmed/36670846 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani13020306 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Li, Xin
Zhou, Ruizhu
Feng, Lei
Wang, Hui
Feng, Jiang
Wu, Hui
Effects of Different-Syllable Aggressive Calls on Food Intake and Gene Expression in Vespertilio sinensis
title Effects of Different-Syllable Aggressive Calls on Food Intake and Gene Expression in Vespertilio sinensis
title_full Effects of Different-Syllable Aggressive Calls on Food Intake and Gene Expression in Vespertilio sinensis
title_fullStr Effects of Different-Syllable Aggressive Calls on Food Intake and Gene Expression in Vespertilio sinensis
title_full_unstemmed Effects of Different-Syllable Aggressive Calls on Food Intake and Gene Expression in Vespertilio sinensis
title_short Effects of Different-Syllable Aggressive Calls on Food Intake and Gene Expression in Vespertilio sinensis
title_sort effects of different-syllable aggressive calls on food intake and gene expression in vespertilio sinensis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9854892/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36670846
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani13020306
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