Title |
Brevity is prevalent in bat short-range communication
|
---|---|
Published in |
Journal of Comparative Physiology A, February 2013
|
DOI | 10.1007/s00359-013-0793-y |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Bo Luo, Tinglei Jiang, Ying Liu, Jing Wang, Aiqing Lin, Xuewen Wei, Jiang Feng |
Abstract |
Animal communication follows many coding schemes. Less is known about the coding strategy for signal length and rates of use in animal vocal communication. A generalized brevity (negative relation between signal length and frequency of use) is innovatively explored but remains controversial in animal vocal communication. We tested brevity for short-range social and distress sounds from four echolocating bats: adult black-bearded tomb bat Taphozous melanopogon, Mexican free-tailed bat Tadarida brasiliensis, adult greater horseshoe bat Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, and adult least horseshoe bat Rhinolophus pusillus. There was a negative association between duration and number of social but not distress calls emitted. The most frequently emitted social calls were brief, while most distress calls were long. Brevity or lengthiness was consistently selected in vocal communications for each species. Echolocating bats seem to have convergent coding strategy for communication calls. The results provide the evidence of efficient coding in bat social vocalizations, and lay the basis of future researches on the convergence for neural control on bats' communication calls. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United Kingdom | 3 | 27% |
Australia | 2 | 18% |
New Zealand | 1 | 9% |
United States | 1 | 9% |
Hong Kong | 1 | 9% |
Unknown | 3 | 27% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Scientists | 6 | 55% |
Members of the public | 4 | 36% |
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 9% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Poland | 1 | 2% |
Unknown | 40 | 98% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Ph. D. Student | 10 | 24% |
Student > Master | 5 | 12% |
Student > Bachelor | 4 | 10% |
Professor > Associate Professor | 4 | 10% |
Professor | 3 | 7% |
Other | 8 | 20% |
Unknown | 7 | 17% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 27 | 66% |
Psychology | 2 | 5% |
Linguistics | 2 | 5% |
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 1 | 2% |
Business, Management and Accounting | 1 | 2% |
Other | 3 | 7% |
Unknown | 5 | 12% |