Journal
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY
Volume 211, Issue 1, Pages 106-113Publisher
COMPANY OF BIOLOGISTS LTD
DOI: 10.1242/jeb.009688
Keywords
echolocating bat; biosonar; jamming avoidance; echo processing
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Funding
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH [R01MH069633] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NIMH NIH HHS [R01 MH 069633] Funding Source: Medline
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When searching for prey, big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) enhance the range of their sonar by concentrating more energy in the nearly constant-frequency (CF) tail portion of their frequency-modulated ( FM) sweeps. We hypothesize that this portion of their signals may be vulnerable to interference from conspecifics using the same frequencies in their own emissions. To determine how bats modify their signals when confronted with an interfering stimulus, we compared the echolocation calls of bats when a CF jamming tone was on and off. The bats performed a two-alternative forced-choice detection task in the laboratory that required the use of echolocation. All three bats shifted the tail-end CF component of their emitted frequency bidirectionally away from the CF jamming stimulus only when the jamming frequency was within 2-3 kHz of the preferred baseline frequency of the bat. The duration of their emissions did not differ between the jamming and no-jamming trials. The jamming avoidance response of bats may serve to avoid masking or interference in a narrow range of frequencies important for target detection.
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