A social foraging trade-off in echolocating bats reveals that they benefit from some conspecifics but are impaired when many are around

Ksenia Krivoruchko, Jens C. Koblitz, Aya Goldshtein, Katarina Biljman, Antonio Guillén-Servent, Yossi Yovel

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Social foraging is very common in the animal kingdom. Numerous studies have documented collective foraging in various species and many reported the attraction of various species to foraging conspecifics. It is nonetheless difficult to quantify the benefits and costs of collective foraging, especially in the wild. We examined the benefits and costs of social foraging using on-board microphones mounted on freely foraging Molossus nigricans bats. This allowed us to quantify the bats’ attacks on prey and to assess their success as a function of conspecific density. We found that the bats spent most of their time foraging at low conspecific densities, during which their attacks were most successful in terms of prey items captured per time unit. Notably, their capture rate dropped when conspecific density became either too high or too low. Our findings thus demonstrate a clear social foraging trade-off in which the presence of a few conspecifics probably improves foraging success, whereas the presence of too many impairs it.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere2321724121
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume121
Issue number30
DOIs
StatePublished - 23 Jul 2024

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General

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