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. 2021 Oct 30;11(22):15792-15799.
doi: 10.1002/ece3.8249. eCollection 2021 Nov.

The role of olfactory cues in mother-pup, groupmate, and sex recognition of lesser flat-headed bats, Tylonycteris pachypus

Jie Liang  1 , Jian Yang  1 , Yi Chen  1 , Libiao Zhang  1
Affiliations

The role of olfactory cues in mother-pup, groupmate, and sex recognition of lesser flat-headed bats, Tylonycteris pachypus

Jie Liang et al. Ecol Evol. .

Abstract

Tylonycteris pachypus is a gregarious bat species with tens of individuals in a colony. The mechanisms by which mother bats recognize their pups and adult bats recognize each other are not clear. We hypothesized that such recognition is achieved by chemical discrimination and performed experiments to test the hypothesis. Results showed that mother bats were much more attracted to the scent from their own pups. For adult bats, females were attracted to the scent from both male and female groupmates but had a higher preference to the scent from female than from male groupmates. Male bats were much more attracted to the scent from male groupmates while showed no preference to the scent from female groupmates. Within a group, both female and male bats had no difference in preference to the scent from the same or opposite sex. These results suggest that mother-pup and groupmate recognition of T. pachypus can be achieved by olfactory cues.

Keywords: Tylonycteris pachypus; bats; groupmate recognition; mother‐pup recognition; scent; sex recognition.

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Conflict of interest statement

None declared.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Sampling sites in Longzhou County, China
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Maze apparatus used in experiments. A. Adaption tube; B and C. Odorant tubes; D. Midline. G. infrared camera. The angle between the adaption tube and each odorant tube is 120°
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Time spent in the biozone in M‐POC experiment. The number of bats in each group spending more than half of total time in the biozone is indicated by fractional numbers. The distance between the two walls of the balloons represents number of bats. The thick dashed line denotes half (300 s) of total observation time (600 s). The thick dashed line in the balloons indicates the mean of data from all individual bats in a group, and the thin dashed lines above and below it represent 3 quarters and one quarter of total time spent in the biozone, respectively. ns: not significant. *p < .05
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Time spent in the groupmate zone in GOC experiment. The number of bats in each group spending more than half of total time in the groupmate zone is indicated by fractional numbers. The distance between the two walls of the balloons represents number of bats. The thick dashed line denotes half (300 s) of total observation time (600 s). The thick dashed line in the balloons indicates the mean of data from all individual bats in a group, and the thin dashed lines above and below it represent 3 quarters and one quarter of total time spent in the biozone, respectively. ns: not significant. *p < .05. **p < .01
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Time spent in the female zone in SOC experiment. The number of bats in each group spending more than half of total time in the female zone is indicated by fractional numbers. The distance between the two walls of the balloons represents number of bats. The thick dashed line denotes half (300 s) of total observation time (600 s). The thick dashed line in the balloons indicates the mean of data from all individual bats in a group, and the thin dashed lines above and below it represent 3 quarters and one quarter of total time spent in the biozone, respectively
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