Effects of aversive experience on the behavior within a custom-made plus maze in the short-tailed fruit bat, Carollia perspicillata

Abstract

Stress exposure evokes a variety of physiological and behavioral responses in an organism, enabling it to cope with stressful situations and changes in the environment. In a previous study, we found that subjecting individuals of Carollia perspicillata to a chronic immobilization stress paradigm resulted in a significant increase of fecal cortisol concentrations. In the present study, we investigated the influence of stress on the behavior of C. perspicillata, by adapting a commonly used behavioral paradigm for characterizing coping styles of animals (i.e., the elevated-plus maze) to bats. Adult bats were subjected 1 h/day to immobilization over a period of 10 days. On the subsequent day, the behavior of each animal was analyzed in a custom-made plus maze, consisting of four arms (two open and two enclosed ones) and designed 3D because of the bats' ability to fly. In this newly invented design, we compared the behaviors of stressed animals and controls. Changes in locomotor and exploratory behavior suggest two divergent adaptive behaviors in C. perspicillata following the chronic stress paradigm, possibly indicating different stress coping styles.