Auditory-guided behaviour at two extremes of sensory processing

捕食者和猎物之间的相互作用是大多数动物生存的关键：捕食者需要吃东西，而猎物需要生存。这种相互的动态导致了各种适应优化攻击和逃跑的扩散共同进化。除了结构、形态和解剖上的适应，如盔甲或肌肉质量，感觉和行为策略是捕食者和猎物的关键组成部分。两者都需要探测和定位对方以引起行为反应，两者都使用感官策略来防止被探测，比如伪装。虽然调节捕食者和猎物共存的视觉感觉策略得到了很好的研究，但我将在这里研究听觉领域的感觉策略。捕食者，像任何动物一样，不断地经历着过载的环境信息，其中只有一小部分是与行为相关的，需要通过适当的感觉认知过程来过滤和选择。在捕食者子项目中，我将研究barbastelle蝙蝠的猎物探测和选择策略。根据我之前的观察，我假设这种专门的猎人利用多种感官线索来探测飞舞的昆虫，包括猎物发出的声音和猎物拍击翅膀产生的随时间变化的回声模式。我将描述这些感官线索，并将测试它们的感知能力，作为蝙蝠发出短时间呼叫的一种新的感官策略。在环境信息过载的情况下，整合多种感官线索可以使猎物信息在感知上更加突出和更好地被发现。用非常显眼的歌声交流的被捕食物种似乎不适应窃听捕食者的威胁。猎物子项目将扩展我的模型系统，包括唱歌的丛林蟋蟀Ruspolia nitidula，它发出非常明显和持续的歌声，没有化学防御，不会停止歌唱，响应模拟蝙蝠的叫声，但不会被蝙蝠吃掉。因此，我提出，持续歌唱的物种依靠其他防御策略来防止捕食。我将测试一个假设，即在群体中持续唱歌可以保护动物免受捕食，因为哺乳动物的听觉系统在这种情况下无法定位单个声源。其次，我将验证这一假设，即鸣声干扰（“堵塞”）蝙蝠的回声定位，通过这种方式，甚至可以通过短期的声音共栖来保护附近的其他昆虫免受蝙蝠的捕食。

Predator-prey interactions are key to the survival of most animals: predators need to eat, while prey need to survive. This reciprocal dynamic lead to the diffuse co-evolution of various adaptations for optimized attack and escape. Besides structural, morphological and anatomical adaptations, like armour or muscle mass, sensorial and behavioural strategies are a key component for both predators and prey. Both need to detect and localise each other to elicit behavioural responses, and both employ sensory strategies to prevent detection, such as camouflage. While visual sensory strategies that mediate the coexistence of predators and prey are well studied, this is not the case for sensory strategies in the auditory domain, which I will investigate here.Predators, like any animal, constantly experience an overload of environmental information, of which only a small part is behaviourally relevant and which needs to be filtered and selected by appropriate sensori-cognitive processes. In the predator subproject, I will investigate the prey detection and selection strategies of the barbastelle bat. Based on my previous observations, I hypothesize that this specialized hunter exploits multiple sensory cues to detect fluttering insects, including prey-generated sounds and time-variant echo-patterns generated by the prey’s wingbeat. I will characterize those sensory cues and will test their perception as a novel sensory strategy of a bat that emits calls with short duration. Integrating multiple sensory cues would make prey information perceptually more salient and better detectable within the overload of environmental information.Prey species that communicate with highly conspicuous song seem to be maladapted to the predation threat by eavesdropping predators. The prey subproject will extend my model systems to include the singing bushcricket Ruspolia nitidula, which emits a highly conspicuous and continuous song, is not chemically defended and does not stop singing in response to simulated bat calls, and yet is not consumed by bats. I thus propose that continuously singing species rely on other defence strategies to prevent predation. I will test the hypothesis that singing continuously in groups offers protection from predation because the mammalian auditory system cannot localize individual sound sources in this situation. Secondly, I will test the hypothesis that the song interferes (“jams”) with bat echolocation, in this way even protecting other insects close-by flying from bat predation via short-term acoustic commensalism.