A 2.6-gram sound and movement tag for studying the acoustic scene and kinematics of echolocating bats
Abstract
1. To study sensorimotor behaviour in wild animals, it is necessary to synchronously record the sensory inputs available to the animal, and its movements. To do this, we have developed a biologging device that can record the primary sensory information and the associated movements during foraging and navigating in echolocating bats. 2. This 2.6 -gram tag records the sonar calls and echoes from an ultrasonic microphone, while simultaneously sampling fine-scale movement in three dimensions from wideband accelerometers and magnetometers. In this study, we tested the tag on an European noctula (Nyctalus noctula) during target approaches and on four big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) during prey interception in a flight room. 3. We show that the tag records both the outgoing calls and echoes returning from objects at biologically relevant distances. Inertial sensor data enables the detection of behavioural events such as flying, turning, and resting. In addition, individual wing-beats can be tracked and synchronized to the bat's sound emissions to study the coordination of different motor events. 4. By recording the primary acoustic flow of bats concomitant with associated behaviours on a very fine time-scale, this type of biologging method will foster a deeper understanding of how sensory inputs guide feeding behaviours in the wild.
Citation
Stidsholt , L , Johnson , M , Beedholm , K , Jakobsen , L , Kugler , K , Brinkløv , S , Salles , A , Moss , C F & Madsen , P T 2019 , ' A 2.6-gram sound and movement tag for studying the acoustic scene and kinematics of echolocating bats ' , Methods in Ecology and Evolution , vol. 10 , no. 1 , pp. 48-58 . https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13108
Publication
Methods in Ecology and Evolution
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2041-210XType
Journal article
Rights
© 2018, the Author(s). Methods in Ecology and Evolution © 2018 British Ecological Society This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher's policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13108
Description
This study was supported by the Carlsberg Foundation via a Semper Ardens grant, ONR, N00014-17-1- 2736; AFOSR FA9550-14-1-0398, and NSF NCS-FO:1734744 and a Human Frontiers Science Program Long-Term Fellowship to AS. These experiments were approved by The Danish Council for Experiments on Animals under permit number: 2016-15-0201-00989 and by the Johns Hopkins University Animal Care and Use Committee under protocol number BA17A107. We thank Uwe Firzlaff and Lutz Wiegrebe for their help.Collections
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