Modeling perspectives on echolocation strategies inspired by bats flying in groups

Authored by Yuan Lin, Nicole Abaid

Date Published: 2015

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2015.09.007

Sponsors: United States National Science Foundation (NSF)

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Flow charts Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Bats navigating with echolocation - which is a type of active sensing achieved by interpreting echoes resulting from self-generated ultrasonic pulses - exhibit unique behaviors during group flight. While bats may benefit from eavesdropping on their peers' echolocation, they also potentially suffer from confusion between their own and peers' pulses, caused by an effect called frequency jamming. This hardship of group flight is supported by experimental observations of bats simplifying their sound-scape by shifting their pulse frequencies or suppressing echolocation altogether. Here, we investigate eavesdropping and varying pulse emission rate from a modeling perspective to understand these behaviors' potential benefits and detriments. We define an agent-based model of echolocating bats avoiding collisions in a three-dimensional tunnel. Through simulation, we show that bats with reasonably accurate eavesdropping can reduce collisions compared to those neglecting information from peers. In large populations, bats minimize frequency jamming by decreasing pulse emission rate, while collision risk increases; conversely, increasing pulse emission rate minimizes collisions by allowing more sensing information generated per bat. These strategies offer benefits for both biological and engineered systems, since frequency jamming is a concern in systems using active sensing. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Tags

Agent-based model behavior Prey Animal groups Big brown bats Eptesicus-fuscus Target-detection Sound beam Flight Pursuit