Behavioural ecology of bats

我和我的学生研究蝙蝠的行为、生态和进化。我们在野外使用活的、自由生活的蝙蝠，并使用博物馆收藏品(主要是多伦多的皇家安大略博物馆)保存的标本。我们对蝙蝠的进化和适应性辐射特别感兴趣。利用Micro-CT扫描，我们发现了两块骨骼(茎舌骨和鼓膜)之间的连接，这始终使我们能够识别具有喉部回声定位能力的蝙蝠。虽然所有蝙蝠都会飞，但并不是所有的蝙蝠都会回声定位，一些回声定位器(主要来自非回声定位果蝠家族)在发出舌头声时会发出生物声纳信号。更常见的回声定位信号是在大喉管中产生的。我们还使用对超声波敏感的麦克风来监听蝙蝠的回声定位叫声。这种方法使我们能够识别物种，监测觅食行为，并测量栖息地利用的相对水平。这些信息使我们能够评估不同栖息地和景观特征对蝙蝠的重要性。这一结果可能会为有关放置风力涡轮机的决策提供参考，以将蝙蝠和涡轮机之间的碰撞降至最低。关于蝙蝠如何利用栖息地的信息与它们捕食的昆虫物种的数据相结合，作为研究群落生态学的一种手段。喉部回声定位蝙蝠的回声定位行为非常灵活，因为蝙蝠会根据它们活动的情况来调整它们的信号。我们研究了居住环境和社会环境对呼叫设计的影响。

My students and I study the behaviour, ecology, and evolution of bats. We work with live, free-living bats in the field, and with preserved specimens in museum collections (mainly the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto). We are particularly interested in the evolution and adaptive radiation of bats. Using Micro-CT scanning we have discovered a connection between two bones (the stylohyal and the tympanic) that always allows us to identify bats capable of laryngeal echolocation. While all bats can fly, not all echolocate and some echolocators (from a family of mainly non-echolocating fruit bats) produce their biosonar signals while clicking their tongues. More commonly echolocation signals are produced in the largynx. We also use microphones sensitive to ultrasonic sounds to monitor the echolocation calls of bats. This approach allows us to identify species, monitor foraging behaviour, and measure relative levels of habitat use. This information allows us to assess the importance of different habitats and landscape features to bats. The results could inform decisions about positioning wind turbines to minimize collisions between bats and turbines. Information about how bat use habitat is combined with data on the insect species eaten by them as a means of studying community ecology. The echolocation behaviour of laryngeally echolocating bats is very flexible because bats adjust their signals according to the situations in which they are operating. We study the influence of both habitat and social setting on call design.