The benefits of insect-swarm hunting to echolocating bats, and its influence on the evolution of bat echolocation signals.

ABSTRACT: Predation on swarms of prey, especially using visual information, has drawn much interest in studies of collective movement. Surprisingly, in the field of biosonar this aspect of prey detection, which is probably very common, has received little to no attention. Here, we combine computer simulations and actual echo measurements to accurately estimate the echo sound pressure of insect swarms of different size and density. We show that swarm echo sound pressure increases with 3dB for every doubling of insect number, irrespective of swarm density. Thus swarms will be much easier to detect than single insects. Many of the insects bats eat are so small that they are only detectable by echolocation at very short distances. By focusing on detection of swarms of insects, a bat may increase its ope

SUBMITTER: Boonman A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6907744 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature