Cognitive ecology of predatory bats and sound-producing prey

我的研究计划的长期目标是更好地了解动物--脊椎动物和无脊椎动物--是如何利用感觉信息来构建其经常变化的外部环境的有用的内部表征。在这项为期5年的研究拨款过程中，我们将使用捕食性蝙蝠来调查蝙蝠是否以及如果是的话，如何主要使用听觉信息来实时和未来做出关于吃什么昆虫和避免什么昆虫的决策。首先，我们将调查当地虎蛾群落跨物种和物种内的化学防御。虎蛾通常有明显的颜色和/或发出蝙蝠威慑声音，这些信号分别警告鸟类和蝙蝠，它们可能是有毒的。然而，自然界中个体蛾的化学防御和适口性很少被研究。通过识别经过化学保护的物种，直到那些完全可口的物种，然后我们将尝试根据翅膀图案和颜色来识别潜在的模仿复合体。类似地，我们将播放所有本地蝙蝠物种(其中8种，其中3种是迁徙蝙蝠)的回声定位攻击序列，其声压水平与开放空间中蝙蝠的声压级相同，并记录所有虎蛾的声学反应。然后，我们将比较不同物种产生的虎蛾的滴答声和滴答声调制周期，以再次识别潜在的模仿环，这一次是关于防御性声音信号的设计和部署。有了这些结果，我们然后在大型室外飞行房间里用蝙蝠(圈养出生的和野生捕获的幼虫和成年蝙蝠)和虎蛾来测试这些潜在的视觉和听觉模仿。我们还将进行更简单的实验，以证明虎蛾物种在鸟类、陆生哺乳动物和其他昆虫中的适口性。并用纸质模型进行实地测试，以记录哪些老虎蛾物种受到鸟类的攻击。安大略省南部是一个可管理的虎蛾群落(约30个常见物种)的家园，我们之前已经为这个群落建立了一个分子系统学和一个小蝙蝠群落，这使得这是一个可行的系统来考虑捕食者学习、记忆和捕食者-猎物相互作用的进化生态学。考虑到这一点，我们还将进行飞行室实验，看看当地采集蝙蝠是否可以通过听模拟的叫声来了解它们新引入的可口的、能发出声音的猎物(例如，引入的凯迪德物种)，然后被另一只蝙蝠攻击和吃掉。我们还将测试蝙蝠是否可以从倾听其他蝙蝠的声音中学习应该避免哪些虎蛾，就像一些以昆虫为食的鸟类所做的那样。最后，我们将测试蝙蝠是否可以更快地从表面捕捉猎物(即收集食物)，当它们与已经收集的蝙蝠为伍时，并彻底调查一些当地蝙蝠物种在森林周围的路灯下捕食飞蛾时的异常行为，包括虎蛾。

The long-term objective of my research program is to better understand how animals - vertebrates and invertebrates alike - use sensory information to construct useful internal representations of their often changing external environments. Over the course of this 5-year research grant, we will use predatory bats to investigate if and, if so, how bats use primarily auditory information for real-time and future decision-making about what insects to eat and what insects to avoid. First, we will investigate the chemical defences of the local community of tiger moths, across and within species. Tiger moths are often conspicuously coloured and/or produce bat-deterring sounds, these signals warn birds and bats, respectively, that they may be noxious. However, the chemical defences and palatability of individual moths in nature is rarely investigated. By identifying chemically defended species through to those that are entirely palatable, we will then try to identify potential mimicry complexes based on wing pattern and colouration. Similarly, we will play back echolocation attack sequences from all local bat species (8, 3 of which are migratory) at sound pressure levels reflective of bats in open space to all tiger moth species and record the moths' acoustic responses. We will then compare tiger moths' clicks and clicks modulation cycles as produced by different species to, again, identify potential mimicry rings, this time with respect to defensive acoustic signal design and deployment. With these results in hand, we then test these potential visual and acoustic mimicry using bats (captive born, and wild caught, juveniles and adults) and tiger moths in large outdoor flight rooms. We will also conduct simpler experiments to document tiger moth species' palatability in birds, terrestrial mammals, and other insects. And conduct field tests with paper models to document which tiger moth species are attacked by birds. Southern Ontario is home to a manageable community of tiger moths (~30 common species) for which we have previously built a molecular phylogeny and a small community of vespertilionid bats, making this a feasible system to consider the evolutionary ecology of predator learning, memory, and predator-prey interaction. With that in mind, we will also conduct flight room experiments to see if local gleaning bats can learn about palatable, sound producing prey new to them (e.g., an introduced katydid species) by listening to its simulated stridulations and then be attacked and consumed by another bat. We will also test if bats can learn from listening to other bats which tiger moths to avoid, as appears possible in some insect-eating birds. Last, we will test whether bats can learn to take prey from surfaces (i.e. glean) more quickly when they keep the company of bats that already glean, and thoroughly investigate the extraordinary behaviour of some local bat species when hunting moths, including tiger moths, at streetlights surrounded by forest.