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Vol. 54, 2015
Sexual dimorphism in echolocation pulse parameters of the CF-FM bat, Hipposideros pratti
Zi-Ying Fu1, Xing-Yue Dai1, Na Xu1, Qing Shi1, Gao-Jing Li1, Bin Li1, Juan Li1, Jie Li1, Jia Tang1, Philip Hung-Sun Jen2,3,4* and Qi-Cai Chen1*
1School
of Life Sciences and Hubei Key Lab of Genetic Regulation and
Integrative Biology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan
430079Hubei, China
2College of Special Education, Binzhou Medical College, Yantai, Shandong, China
3Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal
University, Taipei, China. 4Division of Biological Sciences, University
of Missouri–Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
Abstract
Background: Previous
studies of sexual dimorphism in the echolocation pulses of the constant
frequency-frequency modulating (CF-FM) bat have been mainly
concentrated on the difference in the frequency of the CF component of
the predominant second harmonic while neglected other pulse parameters.
However, recent studies have shown that other pulse parameters of the
predominant second harmonic are also biologically significant to the
bat hunting. To complement and advance these studies, we have examined
sexual dimorphism of multiple parameters (e.g., duration, frequency,
bandwidth of the FM component, and repetition rate of emitted pulses)
of the echolocation pulses of the CF-FM bat, Hipposideros pratti.
Results: Our
studies of the predominant second harmonic show that on average the
male bat has higher frequency of the CF component, wider FM bandwidth,
and higher pulse repetition rate while the female bat has longer
duration of the CF and FM components.
Conclusions: These
observations suggest that bats may potentially use this sexual
dimorphism in echolocation pulse parameters for social communication
and species and sex identification.
Key words: CF-FM bat; Echolocation pulse; Sexual dimorphism; Hipposideros pratti.
*Correspondence: E-mail: jenp@missouri.edu; chenqc@mail.ccnu.edu.cn
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