Sound Strategies: Acoustic Mimicry and Jamming in the Bat-Moth Arms Race

声音策略：蝙蝠蛾军备竞赛中的声学模仿和干扰

• 批准号: 0615164
• 负责人: William Conner
• 金额: $ 18.52万
• 依托单位: Wake Forest University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-07-01 至 2011-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0615164&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Sound; Strategies; Acoustic; Mimicry; Jamming

The interactions of insectivorous bats and their prey can be thought of as an evolutionary arms race. Bats began the race with the evolution of sophisticated, high pitched sonar with which they track insects through space. Many nocturnal insects including moths countered with the evolution of sonar detection devices, ears, that alert insects to the echolocation cries of approaching bats. Moths take evasive action and an impressive aerobatic dog fight between predator and prey ensues. Tiger moths (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae) have added a new twist to the fray. Tiger moths answer bats with a series of high frequency clicks produced by paired thoracic structures called tymbals. Recent research has shown tiger moths send out an acoustic warning that they are not palatable food items, much as insects use bright colors to warn visual predators that they are noxious. The bats quickly learn that clicking moths taste bad. This study will focus on additional complexities of the bat-moth interaction. The first is the possible evolution of Batesian mimics, species that cheat the system by producing warning sounds in the absence of chemical defenses to back them up. The second is the evolution of Mullerian mimics, distasteful sound-producing species that share in the burden of educating local predators by sounding alike. These possibilities will be tested using novel learning methods developed with lab-raised naive red bats and tiger moths chosen to represent different levels of sound production and palatability. This work will expand the current usage of the concept of mimicry from classic visual signals to include the acoustic realm. The study will also investigate whether certain moth species, those that produce extraordinarily complex sounds, can jam the sonar of bats much as military aircraft jam enemy radar. The bat-moth story has shaped the field of animal behavior and it is one of the most sophisticated predator-prey interactions known. An understanding of these processes will not only explain the fascinating details of bat-tiger moth evolution, it will also illustrate how fundamental behavioral interactions have shaped the acoustic world. In addition to the training of high quality graduate students and undergraduates in the field of animal behavior the results of these experiments will be shared with grade school children through a cooperative program with the Archbold Biological Station in south-central Florida. Undergraduates from Wake Forest will serve as liaisons to the summer ecology camp held at Archbold for 3rd, 4th. and 5th. graders. The undergraduates will teach hypothesis testing to the summer campers using our bat-moth system as an example. A website dedicated to the interactions of Bats and Bugs has been developed to take advantage of the intrinsic appeal of both types of organisms to entice children to explore behavior, ecology and evolution.

食虫蝙蝠和它们的猎物之间的相互作用可以被认为是一场进化的军备竞赛。蝙蝠开始了这场竞赛，进化出了复杂的高音声纳，它们用这种声纳在太空中追踪昆虫。包括飞蛾在内的许多夜行性昆虫进化出了声纳探测装置，即耳朵，它能提醒昆虫注意接近蝙蝠的回声定位叫声。 蛾采取回避行动和令人印象深刻的特技飞行狗之间的捕食者和猎物的战斗。虎蛾（鳞翅目：灯蛾科）又给这场争斗增加了一个新的转折。虎蛾用一系列高频率的咔哒声回应蝙蝠，这些咔哒声是由成对的胸部结构（称为鼓膜）产生的。最近的研究表明，虎蛾发出声音警告，它们不是可口的食物，就像昆虫使用明亮的颜色警告视觉捕食者它们是有毒的一样。蝙蝠很快就知道，点击蛾味道不好。 这项研究将集中在蝙蝠蛾相互作用的额外复杂性。第一个是可能的进化，即在没有化学防御系统支持的情况下，通过发出警告声音来欺骗系统的物种。第二个是穆勒拟态的进化，这些令人讨厌的声音产生物种通过声音相似来分担教育当地捕食者的负担。这些可能性将使用新的学习方法进行测试，这些方法是用实验室饲养的天真红蝙蝠和虎蛾开发的，它们被选择来代表不同水平的声音产生和适口性。这项工作将扩大目前使用的概念模仿从经典的视觉信号，包括声学领域。这项研究还将调查某些蛾类，那些产生非常复杂的声音，是否可以干扰蝙蝠的声纳，就像军用飞机干扰敌人的雷达一样。 蝙蝠蛾的故事塑造了动物行为的领域，它是已知的最复杂的捕食者-猎物相互作用之一。对这些过程的理解不仅可以解释蝙蝠虎蛾进化的迷人细节，还可以说明基本的行为相互作用如何塑造声学世界。 除了在动物行为领域培养高质量的研究生和本科生外，这些实验的结果还将通过与佛罗里达中南部的阿赫博尔德生物站的合作项目与小学生分享。来自维克森林的本科生将担任第三、四届在阿赫博尔德举行的夏季生态夏令营的联络员。和第五。评分员本科生将以我们的蝙蝠蛾系统为例，向夏令营的学生教授假设检验。一个专门介绍蝙蝠和昆虫相互作用的网站已经开发出来，以利用这两种生物的内在吸引力来吸引儿童探索行为，生态和进化。