ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Ecol. Evol.
Sec. Behavioral and Evolutionary Ecology
This article is part of the Research TopicEthological neuroscienceView all 16 articles
Social calls of big brown bats in a competitive feeding context
Provisionally accepted
- Brown University, Providence, United States
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Big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) have a diverse vocal repertoire. We tested the hypothesis that frequency-modulated bout (FMBs) are male-specific calls produced during food competition. Seven pairs of bats (male-male, male-female, female-female) competed in the laboratory to capture a food item. Within this restricted behavioral context, we identified six common social call types, broadly classified as aggressive in previous literature. Female-female pairs produced significantly fewer calls than the pairs containing males, and their social calls were longer in duration. FMB calls were absent in all female-female pairs but were present, in varying numbers, in pairs containing males. FMBs recorded in the laboratory resembled those recorded from big brown bats foraging in the wild. Results support the hypothesis that FMBs are produced in foraging interactions in both the laboratory and the field, and confirm previous reports of less robust vocal interactions between female bats.
Keywords: bats, bioacoustics, Chiroptera, social communication, Vocalizations
Received: 22 Aug 2025; Accepted: 30 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Fry, Suong, Simmons and Simmons. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Andrea M Simmons, andrea_simmons@brown.edu
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