TY - JOUR
T1 - Cognitive map-based navigation in wild bats revealed by a new high-throughput tracking system
AU - Toledo, Sivan
AU - Shohami, David
AU - Schiffner, Ingo
AU - Lourie, Emmanuel
AU - Orchan, Yotam
AU - Bartan, Yoav
AU - Nathan, Ran
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2020 The Authors.
PY - 2020/7/10
Y1 - 2020/7/10
N2 - Seven decades of research on the "cognitive map,"the allocentric representation of space, have yielded key neurobiological insights, yet field evidence from free-ranging wild animals is still lacking. Using a system capable of tracking dozens of animals simultaneously at high accuracy and resolution, we assembled a large dataset of 172 foraging Egyptian fruit bats comprising >18 million localizations collected over 3449 bat-nights across 4 years. Detailed track analysis, combined with translocation experiments and exhaustive mapping of fruit trees, revealed that wild bats seldom exhibit random search but instead repeatedly forage in goal-directed, long, and straight flights that include frequent shortcuts. Alternative, non-map-based strategies were ruled out by simulations, time-lag embedding, and other trajectory analyses. Our results are consistent with expectations from cognitive map-like navigation and support previous neurobiological evidence from captive bats.
AB - Seven decades of research on the "cognitive map,"the allocentric representation of space, have yielded key neurobiological insights, yet field evidence from free-ranging wild animals is still lacking. Using a system capable of tracking dozens of animals simultaneously at high accuracy and resolution, we assembled a large dataset of 172 foraging Egyptian fruit bats comprising >18 million localizations collected over 3449 bat-nights across 4 years. Detailed track analysis, combined with translocation experiments and exhaustive mapping of fruit trees, revealed that wild bats seldom exhibit random search but instead repeatedly forage in goal-directed, long, and straight flights that include frequent shortcuts. Alternative, non-map-based strategies were ruled out by simulations, time-lag embedding, and other trajectory analyses. Our results are consistent with expectations from cognitive map-like navigation and support previous neurobiological evidence from captive bats.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087845066&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1126/science.aax6904
DO - 10.1126/science.aax6904
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C2 - 32647000
AN - SCOPUS:85087845066
SN - 0036-8075
VL - 369
SP - 188
EP - 193
JO - Science
JF - Science
IS - 6500
ER -