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Persistent producer-scrounger relationships in bats.
Lee Harten1, Yasmin Matalon1, Naama Galli1
1Department of Zoology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
Science Advances
|February 15, 2018
Summary
Bats exhibit consistent social foraging strategies, either producing or scrounging food. These persistent producer-scrounger relationships reduce aggression and highlight individual tendencies in social mammals.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral Ecology
- Animal Social Systems
Background:
- Social foraging theory posits benefits from social bonds, including tolerance and information sharing.
- Bats are highly social mammals, but their social foraging dynamics remain understudied.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate social foraging strategies and relationship dynamics in bat colonies.
- To determine the consistency of individual foraging behaviors over time.
- To explore the link between vigilance and foraging strategies.
Main Methods:
- Observation of three captive bat colonies over one year.
- Quantification of over 13,000 social foraging interactions.
- Analysis of individual foraging consistency and social relationship patterns.
Main Results:
- Bats consistently adopted either a 'producing' (food collection) or 'scrounging' (food acquisition from others) strategy.
- Individual strategies remained stable for at least 16 months, except in lactating females who shifted to producing.
- Scroungers formed specific, persistent relationships with 2-3 producers, reducing aggression.
- Scrounging behavior correlated positively with vigilance.
Conclusions:
- Bat colonies represent dynamic social systems valuable for studying mammalian sociality evolution.
- Individual foraging tendencies are crucial for understanding social behavior in group-living animals.
- Long-term social network analysis is essential for comprehending social dynamics.
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