TY  - INPR
A1  - Kiai, Ava
A1  - Clemens, Jan
A1  - Kössl, Manfred
A1  - Poeppel, David
A1  - Hechavarrı́a, Julio C.
T1  - Flexible control of vocal timing in Carollia perspicillata bats enables escape from acoustic interference
T2  - bioRxiv
N2  - In natural environments, background noise can degrade the integrity of acoustic signals, posing a problem for animals that rely on their vocalizations for communication and navigation. A simple behavioral strategy to combat acoustic interference would be to restrict call emissions to periods of low-amplitude or no noise. Using audio playback and computational tools for the automated detection of over 2.5 million vocalizations from groups of freely vocalizing bats, we show that bats (Carollia perspicillata) can dynamically adapt the timing of their calls to avoid acoustic jamming in both predictably and unpredictably patterned noise. This study demonstrates that bats spontaneously seek out temporal windows of opportunity for vocalizing in acoustically crowded environments, providing a mechanism for efficient echolocation and communication in cluttered acoustic landscapes.

One Sentence Summary Bats avoid acoustic interference by rapidly adjusting the timing of vocalizations to the temporal pattern of varying noise.
Y1  - 2023
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/79465
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-794655
UR  - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.09.539989v2
IS  - 2023.05.09.539989, Version 2
PB  - bioRxiv
ER  -