Interpulse Interval Modulation by Echolocating Big Brown Bats (Eptesicus Fuscus) in Different Densities of Obstacle Clutter

Overview

Journal J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol

Publisher Springer

Specialties Neurology
Social Sciences

Date 2009 Mar 27

PMID 19322570

Citations 40

Authors

Anthony E Petrites

Oliver S Eng

Donald S Mowlds

James A Simmons

Caroline M DeLong

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) use biosonar to find insect prey in open areas, but they also find prey near vegetation and even fly through vegetation when in transit from roosts to feeding sites. To evaluate their reactions to dense, distributed clutter, bats were tested in an obstacle array consisting of rows of vertically hanging chains. Chains were removed from the array to create a curved corridor of three clutter densities (high, medium, low). Bats flew along this path to receive a food reward after landing on the far wall. Interpulse intervals (IPIs) varied across clutter densities to reflect different compromises between using short IPIs for gathering echoes rapidly enough to maneuver past the nearest chains and using longer IPIs so that all echoes from one sound can be received before the next sound is emitted. In high-clutter density, IPIs were uniformly shorter (20-65 ms) than in medium and low densities (40-100 ms) and arranged in "strobe groups," with some overlap of echo streams from different broadcasts, causing pulse-echo ambiguity. As previously proposed, alternating short and long IPIs in strobe groups may allow bats to focus on large-scale pathfinding tasks as well as close-in obstacle avoidance.

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