02313nas a2200277 4500008004100000022001300041245008800054210006900142260001600211300001400227490000800241520150900249653002701758653000901785653003701794653001301831653001601844100001201860700001601872700001601888700001601904700001901920700001401939700001601953856006601969 2017 eng d a0003347200aSocial calls honestly signal female competitive ability in Asian particoloured bats0 aSocial calls honestly signal female competitive ability in Asian cJan-05-2017 a101 - 1080 v1273 a

Why a variety of social animals vocalize during agonistic foraging interactions remains obscure. One possibility is that these signals advertise the signaller's competitive ability, playing a role in the defence of food resources, yet there is limited evidence in support of this idea. Here, we used adult female Asian particoloured bats, Vespertilio sinensis, to test whether individual variation in competitive ability when foraging can be explained by social calls. Using synchronized infrared video and audio recording, we monitored bat social vocalizations, dominance rank and weight gain in triads under controlled food conditions. Additionally, subsequent playbacks, consisting of experimental stimuli, echolocation pulses and silence, were presented to feeding bats in a laboratory. Analyses showed that females uttered low-frequency social calls composed of one to five syllable types during feeding competition. The rates of social vocalizations increased with reduced food availability. Interestingly, dominance score and weight gain correlated weakly with body size, but positively with call rate and associated parameters. Playback of social calls inhibited the visits of bats to the focal food dish compared to playback of silence and echolocation pulses. The amount of food consumed was greatly reduced in the presence of experimental stimuli versus controls. Collectively, these results highlight that acoustic signals serve as an honest indicator of bat competitive ability.

10aaggressive interaction10abats10acompetitive ability echolocation10aforaging10asocial call1 aLuo, Bo1 aLu, Guanjun1 aChen, Kelly1 aGuo, Dongge1 aHuang, Xiaobin1 aLiu, Ying1 aFeng, Jiang uhttp://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S000334721730084201999nas a2200265 4500008004100000245014600041210006900187260001600256300001400272490000800286520117800294653001001472653002601482653002201508653002401530653001401554100001501568700001601583700001901599700001301618700001601631700001601647700001601663856005401679 2017 eng d00aThe effects of cultural drift on geographic variation in echolocation calls of the Chinese rufous horseshoe bat ( Rhinolophus sinicus)0 aeffects of cultural drift on geographic variation in echolocatio cJan-08-2017 a532 - 5410 v1233 a

Drift, selection, or their combined effects commonly drive geographic variation in traits. Clarifying the relative roles of each process is a long-standing research goal in evolutionary biology. Acoustic signals of bats are a phenotypic characteristic that plays an important role in social organization and species recognition. We extensively sampled the Chinese rufous horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus sinicus) throughout China and Vietnam and reconstructed a species phylogeny to better understand the patterns and causes of the geographic variation of acoustic signals. Our results showed that the resting frequency (RF) of calls varied with latitude, sex, and distance among different colony locations. RF differences were not correlated with genetic distance (based on only one nuclear locus and the mitochondrial locus), climatic factors (mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitable water), or body size, although differences in calls increased with distance among various populations. This suggests that cultural drift may play more important roles than genetic drift and acoustic adaptation in shaping acoustic differences within regions in R. sinicus.

10adrift10ageographic variation10aresting frequency10aRhinolophus sinicus10aselection1 aXie, Lifen1 aSun, Keping1 aJiang, Tinglei1 aLiu, Sen1 aLu, Guanjun1 aJin, Longru1 aFeng, Jiang uhttp://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/eth.2017.123.issue-8