Arguably biosonar is one of the ‘eye-opening’ discoveries about animal behavior and the auditory systems of echolocators are front and center in this story. Echolocation by bats has proven to be a virtual gold mine for colleagues studying neurobiology, while providing many rich examples of its impact on other areas of bats’ lives. In this volume we briefly review the history of the topic (reminding readers of the 1995 Hearing by Bats). We use a chapter on new findings in the phylogeny of bats to put the information that follows in an evolutionary context. This includes an examination of the possible roles of Prestin and FoxP2 genes and various anatomical features affecting bat vocalizations. We introduce recent work on the role of noseleafs, ears, and other facial components on the focusing of sound and collection of echoes.
With more than 1,400 species, bats are an incredibly diverse and successful group of mammals that can serve as model systems for many unique evolutionary adaptations. Flight has allowed them to master the sky, while echolocation enables them to navigate in the dark. Being small, secretive, nocturnal creatures has made bats a challenge to study, but over the past 50 years, innovative research has made it possible to dispel some of the mystery and myth surrounding them to give us a better understanding of the role these animals play in the ecosystem. The structure of the book is based on several broad themes across the biological sciences, including the evolution of bats, their ecology and behavior, and conservation of biodiversity. Within these themes are more specific topics on important aspects of bat research, such as morphology, molecular biology, echolocation, taxonomy, systematics, threats to bats, social structure, reproduction, movements, and feeding strategies. Given its scope, the book will appeal to the wider scientific community, environmental organizations, and government policymakers who are interested in the interdisciplinary aspects of biology and nature.
Can one undertake a round-the-world trip with conservation uppermost in the mind? This is exactly what Nils Bouillard sought to do in 2019, adapting a popular concept in birding known as the 'big year' and focusing instead on bats. This had never been done before and so became the ideal platform to spotlight countless conservation projects across the globe. In this engaging and inspiring account we follow Nils on his adventures – along the way discovering the extraordinary diversity of bat appearances and behaviour, and learning how we might help to protect these fascinating creatures. During his itinerary covering just shy of 30 countries, Nils was lucky enough to encounter no fewer than 400 bat species. But beyond the impressive list, Big Bat Year is a passionate tale about the people who are protecting bats all over the world, the amazing life of these animals and the unique and doughty journey it required to set a world record. Going off the beaten path isn’t difficult when it comes to bat watching, offering the chance for genuine exploration and even discovery – as evidenced by the important discovery of a species new to science while visiting Southeast Asia. This book will appeal to any nature enthusiast, regardless of whether you enjoy chasing new species.
A Natural History of Bat Foraging: Evolution, Physiology, Ecology, Behavior, and Conservation offers an all-inclusive resource on all aspects encompassing the vital process of foraging for bats. The book explores knowledge in the field, including sensory ecology, the development of cognitive maps, bat microbiomes, and molecular approaches to studying a bat's diet. It covers the importance of foraging in biology, from evolution and natural selection, to physiology, behavior, ecology, and natural history. In addition, it provides a unique focus on the implications of bat foraging for conservation purposes, including the role that molecular biology can play in preventing species depletion or extinction. With over 1,400 species, bats are among the most diverse vertebrate groups, having evolved an astonishingly broad range of foraging strategies to adapt to nearly all global regions and environments. The book assesses manmade and environmental issues that bats must overcome to ensure survival and prevent extinction. Written by international leaders in bat research, this is the ideal resource for bat specialists and conservationists, as well as zoologists, animal behaviorists, and academics associated with such disciplines. - Offers multiple expert perspectives on bat foraging behavior, a key element that influences ecosystem dynamics and modern animal ecology - Formatted in an easy-to-read structure throughout all chapters - Addresses the conservation and protection status for bat foraging for current and future practical applications
Bats are highly gregarious mammals that have been extensively studied for their ability to echolocate (i.e., gain information from the echoes of ultrasonic calls) to navigate and find food. Perhaps less well studied are social vocalizations, which bats use to communicate with conspecifics. Some bat species have been shown to possess rich vocal repertoires, supporting intricate social interactions. While the roost is likely where the majority of a bat's social interactions occur, on account of higher densities, there are also behavioral contexts that occur predominantly, if not solely in flight, that are associated with social calls. Bats exhibit an extensive range in social group size, social group organization, and mating systems, making them interesting for comparative, phylogenetically controlled analyses. Group size is often correlated with vocal complexity, as more complex vocalizations can encode more information about individual identity. Vocal learning has been observed in some species of bats. The full vocal repertoires of relatively few bat species have been studied thus far, as they are nocturnal, volant animals that produce predominately ultrasonic vocalizations. With more data available, bats would be a very useful taxon for studying the evolution of social communication, as they exhibit not only a high diversity of social group size and complexity but also sophisticated vocalizations. Social vocalizations can be structurally diverse and are highly important for bat sociality. Calls often vary notably between species. Research in this field has barely scratched the surface, and there is still much to learn about social communication in bats.
The social calls of bats are an area about which relatively little is known, with more research still required to expand our understanding. However, these calls are increasingly recognised as a useful aid to identification: they appear to be species specific and are indicative of behaviour – as in territorial activity of males during the mating season. Because the gathering and interpretation of bat echolocation data are a matter of course during research, conservation and consultancy, it is a logical progression to build momentum behind the consideration of social calls in mainstream bat-related work. A better understanding of this subject could mean that non-intrusive survey methods are developed, ensuring that what is being observed is, as far as possible, purely natural behaviour. In turn this will contribute to better interpretation and more suitable mitigation, compensation and/or enhancement solutions. The book summarises what is understood so far about social calls of the bat species occurring in Britain and Ireland, and north-west Europe. This new edition has been updated and expanded throughout, now containing: foreword by the bat authority Michel Barataud, author of Acoustic Ecology of European Bats almost double the number of figures and tables as appeared in the first edition completely overhauled call library, all in full spectrum format, with new additional examples three entirely new chapters, covering bat-related acoustics, settings for social interaction, and survey guidelines The material will be useful to people carrying out bat studies, at whatever level and for whatever purpose, and will also encourage others to undertake further research. What's more, social calls are fascinating to listen to: they are, after all, produced with listeners in mind (other bats). In light of this, the book is accompanied by an extensive downloadable library of sound files which offer a unique gateway into the private life of bats.
This revised edition of a book first published in 2010 supplements the original account of the 116 bat species then known to be found in Southern and Central Africa with an additional eight newly described species. The chapters on evolution, biogeography, ecology and echolocation have been updated, citing dozens of recently published papers. The book covers the latest systematic and taxonomic studies, ensuring that the names and relationships of bats in this new edition reflect current scientific knowledge. The species accounts provide descriptions, measurements and diagnostic characters as well as detailed information about the distribution, habitat, roosting habits, foraging ecology and reproduction of each species. The updated species distribution maps are based on 116 recorded localities. A special feature of the 2010 publication was the mode of identification of families, genera and species by way of character matrices rather than the more generally used dichotomous keys. Since then these matrices have been tested in the field and, where necessary, slightly altered for this edition. New photographs fill in gaps and updated sonograms aid with bat identification in acoustic surveys. The bibliography, which now contains more than 700 entries, will be an invaluable aid to students and scientists wishing to track down original research.
This book provides new insights into the social behavior of bats - one of the most fascinating topics currently being pursued by researchers. After an introduction reviewing the history of research in bat behavioral ecology, it covers three major themes: bat sociality per se (Part I), bat communication (Part II), and ecological aspects (Part III). Part I offers a concise overview of the social organization and systems of bats, introducing readers to the complexity and dynamics of group structures. Part II is devoted to the innovative field of social communication, focusing on bat songs, dialects and calls. Part III discusses the influence of the environment on bat behavior, particularly with regard to roosting and foraging. This book addresses the needs of researchers working in behavioral sciences, evolution and ecology.
This volume focuses on the history of research on hearing from comparative approaches. Each chapters examines the most formative studies that led to current understanding of hearing across taxa and still influence hearing research in general. Much of the early work on hearing, which goes back to Aristotle, as well as the classic work of 16th to early 20th century scientists (e.g., Spellanzani, Retzius, Ramón y Cajal, and Helmholtz) is not well known to modern investigators. Similarly, work in the first 75 years of the 20th century is also unknown or, in some cases, dismissed because it is “old.” Much of the earlier work describes research approaches and results fundamental to our understanding of hearing as well as the beauty of observation and synthesis. The pioneering work on hearing contains ideas and questions that are still germane today. Thus, the goal of this volume is to introduce, review, and put into perspective, older but exemplary, extraordinary studies by investigators that form the basis of our knowledge as well as questions being asked today. Each chapter includes the first significant observations and approaches to hearing in the taxa and/or hearing type that is the focus of the chapter with some of the most important earlier papers discussed in some detail, including the theories, formative experiments, results, and conclusions. Each chapter provides briefer notations and citations of additional important papers that are outgrowths of the founding research – or correlate and even reverse the original works. This volume is a departure from the classic approach established for the SHAR books in which the focus has been on a single topic, and on the most recent and exciting discoveries. One difference in this volume from past SHAR volumes is that we have a more coordinated approach for the chapters to ensure that this volume is, indeed, a documentation of hearing research history, not a review of the latest status of the topic. A second difference is that the focus of the volume is on the historical value of studies. In that sense, the volume maintains the tutorial value for which SHAR books are famous, but it explores the ancestry of modern research in order to help new researchers to gain perspective on important questions and on fundamental information they may not fully appreciate – to their loss. Our interest in doing this volume comes from phenomena familiar to most senior investigators - that younger investigators often have little or no sense of the history of their discipline, and they often do not know that their “hot” new idea was not only pursued, and often solved, but further that it was solved in an elegant way. We believe it is important to bring the methodologies and discoveries on hearing done before the advent of the internet to light, for the benefit and growth of new research. In deciding on the chapter divisions for this book, we considered a number of different organizational schemes, and particularly using as a focus methodological approaches (e.g., psychoacoustics, low to high frequency types, physiology, anatomy). However, we came to the conclusion that most investigators tend to be more focused on working within a particular taxonomic group, settling on particular taxa, in many cases driven by the special hearing abilities. We also concluded that that this approach is more naturally related to the evolution not only of hearing, but also to the evolution of ideas, as much of hearing science was part of the “natural philosopher” approach that was a core element of historical discoveries.
An amazing journey into the hidden realm of nature’s sounds The natural world teems with remarkable conversations, many beyond human hearing range. Scientists are using groundbreaking digital technologies to uncover these astonishing sounds, revealing vibrant communication among our fellow creatures across the Tree of Life. At once meditative and scientific, The Sounds of Life shares fascinating and surprising stories of nonhuman sound, interweaving insights from technological innovation and traditional knowledge. We meet scientists using sound to protect and regenerate endangered species from the Great Barrier Reef to the Arctic and the Amazon. We discover the shocking impacts of noise pollution on both animals and plants. We learn how artificial intelligence can decode nonhuman sounds, and meet the researchers building dictionaries in East African Elephant and Sperm Whalish. At the frontiers of innovation, we explore digitally mediated dialogues with bats and honeybees. Technology often distracts us from nature, but what if it could reconnect us instead? The Sounds of Life offers hope for environmental conservation and affirms humanity’s relationship with nature in the digital age. After learning about the unsuspected wonders of nature’s sounds, we will never see walks outdoors in the same way again.
