Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 346, Issue 6210, Pages 745-747Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1259512
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Funding
- Wake Forest University Summer Fellowship Program
- American Museum of Natural History (Theodore Roosevelt Grant)
- National Institute of Deafness and Communicative Disorders of the National Institutes of Health [UMD T32 DC-00046]
- National Science Foundation [IOS-1257248]
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Integrative Organismal Systems [1257248] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Communication signals are susceptible to interference (jamming) from conspecifics and other sources. Many active sensing animals, including bats and electric fish, alter the frequency of their emissions to avoid inadvertent jamming from conspecifics. We demonstrated that echolocating bats adaptively jam conspecifics during competitions for food. Three-dimensional flight path reconstructions and audio-video field recordings of foraging bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) revealed extended interactions in which bats emitted sinusoidal frequency-modulated ultrasonic signals that interfered with the echolocation of conspecifics attacking insect prey. Playbacks of the jamming call, but not of control sounds, caused bats to miss insect targets. This study demonstrates intraspecific food competition through active disruption of a competitor's sensing during food acquisition.
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