Bioacoustics, hearing, and the integrative physiology of bats

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The long-term goal of my research is to decipher how the nervous system integrates information. To achieve this in the short-term, my lab will conduct novel studies on bioacoustics, hearing, and the integrative physiology of bats. My lab maintains Canada’s only captive research colony of insectivorous bats and this unique resource affords us with diverse opportunities to study bat biology. Bats are ideal subjects for bioacoustics work because we know the sounds important to bats and this simplifies the effort to discover underlying neural mechanisms. Sound recordings will measure how bats adjust echolocation calls when signaling in different acoustical environments. Knowing how bats integrate echoes and alter their vocal design has practical applications for human auditory perception and automated technologies. To complement our biosonar work, we will conduct a novel developmental study and record responses of auditory neurons from the midbrain of big brown bats born in our captive breeding colony to test the idea that bats that lack proper motor development will also show altered auditory function. Compared to free-flying controls, bats reared in cages and not allowed to fly are expected to have large differences in neural specializations for echolocation. Knowledge of auditory developmental plasticity and sensorimotor integration will lead to a more general understanding of hearing and motor control in mammals. One focus of my integrative physiology work is cutaneous healing. Bat wings serve locomotory and physiological roles, and biologists routinely biopsy them to mark bats or obtain tissue for molecular work. Although wing injuries are common in nature, little is known about wound healing. We know the tail membrane heals faster than the wing, likely because of its increased thickness and blood supply, but we don’t know how energetic costs, membrane vasculature, and wound morphology impact the healing process. While advancing knowledge on tissue repair, this work provides baseline data important to conservation because hibernating bats can suffer extensive membrane damage after surviving an infection with the fungus causing white-nose syndrome. Another focus of my integrative physiology work examines hormone production, absorption, and transfer in bats. We know where estradiol—the smallest and most powerful sex steroid—binds in bat tissues and that it transfers between conspecifics. Given its potency in regulating female reproduction, this indicates estradiol is a pheromone with males inducing sexual receptivity and ovulation in females. We will measure natural estradiol levels in bat urine, blood, and glandular secretions across the breeding cycle to advance knowledge of how hormonal signals are integrated to modify behaviour. My diverse and rigorous basic research program seeks to explain how bats integrate exogenous and endogenous signals to generate adaptive behaviour.