Dissertation Research: Group Foraging and Information Acquisition

9321794威尔金森在她的博士论文中，珍妮特·文里克·鲍曼女士将研究在新热带杂食性大鼻蝠中群体觅食的维持。这些蝙蝠成群结队地在丰富而短暂的食物来源周围觅食，同时发出响亮的声音。人们既不完全了解群体觅食的优势，也不完全了解这些发声的功能。鲍曼女士的研究将集中在两个领域。首先，她将确定从群体成员那里获取有关食物分配的信息是否是群体觅食的主要优势。为此，她将分析社交和回声定位呼叫，以确定这些呼叫是否提供声学特征信息。圈养蝙蝠的回放实验将确定声学信息是否被用来区分个体和群体。觅食实验将有助于确定这些信息对动物群体觅食的作用，并衡量利益，以测试相关的群体觅食模型。其次，鲍曼将进行实地考察，以证实圈养动物的研究结果。为此，她将以观察为基础，估计群体觅食的频率，独居和成群觅食的个体的觅食成功，以及栖息群的断奶成功。野外回放将测试蝙蝠在觅食地点的群体辨别能力。这项工作将大大增加对小组成员如何区分他们的小组成员和其他小组成员的理解。它将深入了解语音交流在构建社会系统和调节复杂行为中的影响，以及信息传递在维持群体觅食行为中的重要性。

9321794 Wilkinson For her doctoral dissertation, Ms. Janette Wenrick Boughman will investigate the maintenance of group foraging in the omnivorous, neotropical greater spear-nosed bat. These bats forage in groups around rich, ephemeral food sources, while giving loud vocalizations. Neither the advantages of group foraging nor the functions of these vocalizations are fully understood. Ms. Boughman's research will focus on two areas. First, she will determine if acquisition of information about food distribution from group members is a primary advantage of group foraging. To this end, she will analyze social and echolocation calls to determine if these calls provide acoustic signature information. Playback experiments with captive bats will determine whether acoustic information is used to discriminate between individuals and groups. Foraging experiments will help to determine the function of this information to animals foraging in groups, and measure benefits to test relevant group-foraging models. Second, Ms. Boughman will conduct field work to corroborate results of research with captive animals. To this end, she will make observations as a basis for estimating frequency of group foraging, foraging success of solitary and group-foraging individuals, and weaning success of roost groups. Field playbacks will test group discrimination by bats at foraging sites. This work will add substantially to understanding of how group members discriminate between their group-mates and others. It will provide insight into the influence of vocal communication in structuring social systems and mediating complex behavior, and the importance of information transfer in maintaining group foraging behavior.