Flying bats use serial sampling to locate odour sources.

Area of Science:

• Animal behavior
• Sensory ecology
• Bioacoustics

Background:

• Olfactory tracking often involves a trade-off between speed and sensitivity.
• Fast-moving animals, like bats, exhibit efficient foraging behaviors using smell.
• Fruit and nectar-feeding bats navigate using olfactory cues despite challenges from flight speed and echolocation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the olfactory tracking strategies of flying bats foraging for fruit.
• To understand how bats balance olfactory detection, locomotion, and foraging efficiency.

Main Methods:

• Trained Jamaican fruit-eating bats (Artibeus jamaicensis) to locate an odor reward.
• Reconstructed bat flight paths in three-dimensional space.
• Analyzed flight behaviors, including speed and proximity to targets.

Main Results:

• Bats confirmed reliance on olfactory cues for locating rewards.
• Observed a combination of odor-guided and memory-guided search strategies.
• Bats significantly reduced flight speeds during 'inspection flights' (within ~6 cm of targets) to evaluate odor cues.

Conclusions:

• Bats employ a sophisticated strategy combining olfactory sensing, memory, and adjusted flight dynamics for efficient foraging.
• Reduced speed during inspection flights allows for accurate olfactory assessment, compensating for the challenges of fast flight.
• This integrated approach enables bats to maximize foraging efficiency while overcoming sensory trade-offs.