Free-ranging bats combine three different cognitive processes for roost localization.

ABSTRACT: Animals have evolved different cognitive processes to localize crucial resources that are difficult to find. Relevant cognitive processes such as associative learning and spatial memory have commonly been studied in a foraging related context under controlled laboratory conditions. However, in natural environments, animals can use multiple cognitive processes to localize resources. In this field study, we used a pairwise choice experiment and automatic roost monitoring to assess how individually marked, free-ranging Bechstein's bats belonging to two different colonies use associative learning, spatial memory and social information when localizing suitable day roosts. To our knowledge, this study tests for the first time how associative learning, spatial memory and social information are us

SUBMITTER: Hernandez-Montero JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7165157 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature