Abstract
The ability to detect behaviourally relevant sensory information is crucial for survival. Especially when active-sensing animals behave in proximity, mutual interferences may occur. The aim of this study was to examine how active-sensing animals deal with mutual interferences. Echolocation pulses and returning echoes were compared in spaces of various sizes (wide and narrow) in Rhinolophus ferrumequinum nippon flying alone or in a group of three bats. We found that in the narrow space, the group-flying bats increased the duration and bandwidth of the terminal frequency-modulated component of their vocalizations. By contrast, the frequency of the returning echoes did not differ in the presence of conspecifics. We found that their own echo frequencies were compensated within the narrow frequency ranges by Doppler shift compensation. By contrast, the estimated frequencies of the received pulses emitted by the other bats were much more broadly distributed than their echoes. Our results suggest that the bat auditory systems are sharply tuned to a narrow frequency to filter spectral interference from other bats.
Highlights
Living organisms need to process biologically relevant information and adapt their behaviour for survival
We recorded echolocation pulses and their returning echoes generated by R. f. nippon during group flight
We found that the bats decreased their pulse duration and increased the duration and bandwidth of the terminal FM (tFM) component of the emitted pulses while flying in groups in the narrow space
Summary
Living organisms need to process biologically relevant information and adapt their behaviour for survival. Negatively affected by noise from nearby conspecifics when animals behave in proximity. Under such 2 circumstances, they must filter their own signals from those emitted by conspecific animals, which have similar spectral and temporal features. Echolocating bats process echoes of self-generated ultrasounds to perceive surroundings in the dark. They are supposed to be exposed to many conspecific sounds because they often behave with multiple conspecifics [1–6]. It remains unknown how echolocating bats extract their own echoes in the presence of acoustic interferences by conspecific sounds, so-called jamming [3]
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