Do bats make rational decisions? Claire Hemingway discusses her experiments investigating how different bat species make foraging decisions, and how their choices are shaped by the presence of a competitive decoy.
Murciélagos: magníficos, fascinantes, y esenciales: Mariana Muñoz-Romo discusses the fascinating world of bats. She details the critical ecosystem services bats provide as seed disperses, pollinators and controllers of insect populations. And convinces us that instead of being afraid of bats, we should be fascinated by them and protect them.
Bats and zoonotic disease: Rachel Page talks about the spectacular diversity of bats, their extraordinary immune systems, and what their ability to harbor pathogens often without getting sick themselves means for the spread of zoonotic disease. The upshot? Bats are not to blame for covid-19. Humans are. Which gives us tremendous agency and hope in addressing the problems we've created through globalization, urbanization, wildlife trafficking and the destruction of natural habitats.
Bat Perfume: Mariana Muñoz-Romo explains her investigations into the biological significance of the odorous golden crust found on the forearms of reproductive male fringe-lipped bats, Trachops cirrhosus.
Are bats in the canopy eavesdropping on the mating signals of their prey? Amanda Savage investigates how gleaning bats find their prey at different heights in the forest, and whether they eavesdrop on katydid mating signals, not just near the forest floor, but high up into the canopy as well.
Bound by Blood: Simon Ripperger and Gerry Carter explain how the cooperative bonds vampire bats form in captivity persist upon release in the wild (Ripperger SP, Carter GG, Duda N, Koelpin A, Cassens B, Kapitza R, Josic D, Berrío-Martínez J, Page RA, Mayer F. 2019. Vampire bats that cooperate in the lab maintain their social networks in the wild. Current Biology. 10.1016/j.cub.2019.10.024. PDF)
When does noise serve as an informational cue? Inga Geipel investigates how bats use the sound of rain to time their emergence from the safety of the roost (Geipel I, Smeekes MJ, Halfwerk W, Page RA. 2019. Noise as an informational cue for decision-making: the sound of rain delays bat emergence. The Journal of Experimental Biology. jeb.192005. PDF)
Sexy city frogs: Wouter Halfwerk describes the mating preferences, and the risk of predation and parasitism, in city versus forest frogs (Halfwerk W, Blaas M, Kramer L, Hijner N, Trillo PA, Bernal XE, Page RA, Goutte S, Ryan MJ, Ellers J. 2019. Adaptive changes in sexual signaling in response to urbanization. Nature Ecology & Evolution. 3: 374-380. doi:10.1038/s41559-018-0751-8. PDF)
Mother-pup interactions: Jenna Kohles discusses fledging behavior in baby fruit-eating bats (Kohles JE, Page RA, Dechmann DKN, O'Mara MT (2018) Rapid behavioral changes during early development in Peters' tent-making bat (Uroderma bilobatum). PLoS ONE 13(10): e0205351. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205351. PDF)
SMITHSONIAN Meet the Scientists: STRI Staff Scientist Rachel Page explains how she became a bat biologist.
For more stories on our work, see PAGE LAB Projects and Stories on the STRI webpage:
For more stories on our work, see PAGE LAB Projects and Stories on the STRI webpage:
