Meeting Abstract

36.10  Monday, Jan. 5  A comparative analysis of olfactory communication in bats EITING, T.P.*; DUMONT, E.R.; University of Massachusetts Amherst; University of Massachusetts Amherst tpeiting@bio.umass.edu

Many studies have explored the importance of olfaction in food detection and acquisition in bats. While several comparative studies of fruit- and nectar-eating bats have examined the link between foraging ecology and olfaction, investigations into patterns of olfactory communication among bats have been rare. A few species of bats employ olfaction in communication, but a complete understanding of bat olfaction remains elusive. This study tests the hypotheses that bats employ olfaction for both roostmate recognition and species identification. Relative olfactory bulb volume was used as a measure of olfactory ability, colony size was chosen as a proxy for roostmate recognition, and the number of sympatric bat species was taken as a proxy for species identification. After testing for phylogenetic effects, independent contrasts were used to test for correlated changes in relative olfactory bulb volume and both colony size and number of sympatric species. Results demonstrate that animal-eating bats living in large colonies have relatively large olfactory bulbs, while animal-eaters that live in high degrees of sympatry do not. Among plant-eating bats, the pattern is reversed: those that live in large colonies do not have relatively large olfactory bulbs, while plant-eaters that live in greater sympatry have larger-than-expected olfactory bulbs. These results imply that animal- and plant-eating bats rely, in part, on olfaction to mediate social communication. Olfactory communication apparently mediates different social functions in bats that have different foraging ecologies.