Modeling active sensing reveals echo detection even in large groups of bats

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Ecology
• Sensory Biology
• Bioacoustics

Background:

• Active sensing animals use emitted energy to perceive surroundings, but conspecifics can cause signal jamming.
• The 'cocktail party nightmare' describes jamming interference for echolocating bats, despite their social grouping behavior.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a biologically-informed framework for quantifying echo detection in bat groups.
• To assess how bats in social groups detect each other amidst jamming from echolocation calls.

Main Methods:

• Integrated properties of echolocation, psychoacoustics, acoustics, and group flight dynamics.
• Quantified echo detection capabilities of a focal bat within varying group sizes.

Main Results:

• Bats can detect neighbors in groups up to 100 individuals.
• Detection is limited to closer, frontal neighbors as group size increases.
• Detection improves with longer call intervals, shorter call durations, denser groups, and varied flight/sonar directions.

Conclusions:

• Echolocating bats can detect neighbors in large groups, but sensory fields limit interactions.
• Collective behavior in bats may rely on following nearest neighbors due to spatial sensory constraints.
• Results predict sensory strategies bats use to mitigate jamming in group settings.