Prey conspicuousness can explain apparent prey selectivity.
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Animals↗
Biomedical subjects
Björn M Siemers
Publications and source records attributed to Björn M Siemers.
Acoustic mirror effect increases prey detection distance in trawling bats.
Many different and phylogenetically distant species of bats forage for insects above water bodies and take insects from and close to the surface; the so-called 'trawling behaviour'. Detection of surface-based prey by echolocation is facilitated by acoustically smooth backgrounds such as water surfaces that reflect sound impinging at an acute angle away from the bat and thereby render a prey object acoustically conspicuous. Previous measurements had shown that the echo amplitude of a target on a smooth surface is higher than that of the same target in mid-air, due to an acoustic mirror effect. In behavioural experiments with three pond bats (Myotis dasycneme), we tested the hypothesis that the maximum distances at which bats can detect prey are larger for prey on smooth surfaces than for the same prey in an airborne situation. We determined the moment of prey detection from a change in echolocation behaviour and measured the detection distance in 3D space from IR-video recordings using stereo-photogrammetry. The bats showed the predicted increase in detection distance for prey on smooth surfaces. The acoustic mirror effect therefore increases search efficiency and contributes to the acoustic advantages encountered by echolocating bats when foraging at low heights above smooth water surfaces. These acoustic advantages may have favoured the repeated evolution of trawling behaviour.
Animals↗
Echolocation signals reflect niche differentiation in five sympatric congeneric bat species.
Echolocating bats can be divided into guilds according to their preferred habitat and foraging behaviour, which coincide with distinct adaptations in wing morphology and structure of echolocation signals. Although coarse structuring of niche space between different guilds is generally accepted, it is not clear how niches differ within guilds, or whether there is fine-grained niche differentiation reflected in echolocation signal structure. Using a standardized performance test, here we show clutter-dependent differences in prey-capture success for bats from five species of European Myotis. These species are morphologically similar, sympatric, and all belong to the guild labelled "edge space aerial/trawling foragers". We further demonstrate a strong correlation between the prey-detection ability of the species and the respective search-call bandwidth. Our findings indicate that differences in echolocation signals contribute to within-guild niche differentiation. This is the first study relating sensory abilities of a set of potentially competing animal species to a direct measure of their respective foraging performance, suggesting an important role of sensory ecology in the structuring of animal communities.
Acoustics↗