Potential effects of anthropogenic noise on echolocation behavior in horseshoe bats

Abstract

We previously reported that band-pass filtered noise (BFN, bandwidth 20 kHz) affected the echolocation behavior of horseshoe bats in different ways depending on which frequencies within the bats’ hearing range BFN was centered. We found that call amplitudes only increased when BFN was centered on the dominant frequency of the bats' calls. In contrast, call frequencies were shifted for all BFN stimuli centered on or below the dominant frequency of echolocation calls including when BFN was centered at 20 kHz (BFN20), which is far below the range of the bats’ echolocation call frequencies. In the present study we focused on masking effects of BFN20 and used it as a model stimulus for anthropogenic noise to investigate how this noise affected call parameters of echolocation calls, such as their frequency, amplitude, duration and rate. We show that only call frequencies shifted in response to masking BFN20, whereas all other call parameters tested exhibited no noise-related changes. Our findings provide an empirical basis to quantitatively predict the impact of anthropogenic noise on echolocation behavior in bats. They also emphasize the need for a better understanding of the impact of anthropogenic noise on bioacoustic communication and orientation systems in general.