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Research Article
Biosonar spatial resolution along the distance axis: revisiting the clutter interference zone
Peter A. Wagenhäuser, Lutz Wiegrebe, A. Leonie Baier
Journal of Experimental Biology 2020 223: jeb224311 doi: 10.1242/jeb.224311 Published 16 October 2020
Peter A. Wagenhäuser
1Department of Biology II, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Großhaderner Str. 2, 82152 Planegg-Martinsried, Germany
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Lutz Wiegrebe
1Department of Biology II, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Großhaderner Str. 2, 82152 Planegg-Martinsried, Germany
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A. Leonie Baier
1Department of Biology II, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Großhaderner Str. 2, 82152 Planegg-Martinsried, Germany
2Chair of Zoology, Technical University Munich, Liesel-Beckmann-Str. 4, 85354 Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany
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ABSTRACT

Many echolocating bats forage close to vegetation – a chaotic arrangement of prey and foliage where multiple targets are positioned behind one another. Bats excel at determining distance: they measure the delay between the outgoing call and the returning echo. In their auditory cortex, delay-sensitive neurons form a topographic map, suggesting that bats can resolve echoes of multiple targets along the distance axis – a skill crucial for the forage-amongst-foliage scenario. We tested this hypothesis combining an auditory virtual reality with formal psychophysics: we simulated a prey item embedded in two foliage elements, one in front of and one behind the prey. The simulated spacing between ‘prey’ (target) and ‘foliage’ (maskers) was defined by the inter-masker delay (IMD). We trained Phyllostomus discolor bats to detect the target in the presence of the maskers, systematically varying both loudness and spacing of the maskers. We show that target detection is impaired when maskers are closely spaced (IMD<1 ms), but remarkably improves when the spacing is increased: the release from masking is approximately 5 dB for intermediate IMDs (1–3 ms) and increases to over 15 dB for large IMDs (≥9 ms). These results are comparable to those from earlier work on the clutter interference zone of bats (Simmons et al., 1988). They suggest that prey would enjoy considerable acoustic protection from closely spaced foliage, but also that the range resolution of bats would let them ‘peek into gaps’. Our study puts target ranging into a meaningful context and highlights the limitations of computational topographic maps.

Footnotes

  • Competing interests

    The authors declare no competing or financial interests.

  • Author contributions

    Conceptualization: L.W.; Methodology: L.W., A.L.B.; Software: L.W., A.L.B.; Formal analysis: P.A.W., L.W., A.L.B.; Investigation: P.A.W., A.L.B.; Writing - original draft: L.W., A.L.B.; Writing - review & editing: A.L.B.; Visualization: P.A.W., A.L.B.; Supervision: L.W., A.L.B.; Project administration: L.W., A.L.B.; Funding acquisition: L.W.

  • Funding

    This work was supported by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München [LMU-TAU Joint Research Program grant to L.W.].

  • Data availability

    The data supporting this paper are available at Dryad (Wagenhäuser et al., 2020): dryad.tx95x69vz. Custom software is available upon request.

  • Supplementary information

    Supplementary information available online at https://jeb.biologists.org/lookup/doi/10.1242/jeb.224311.supplemental

  • Received February 27, 2020.
  • Accepted August 18, 2020.
  • © 2020. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
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Keywords

  • Bats
  • Echolocation
  • Virtual target
  • Depth perception
  • Range

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Research Article
Biosonar spatial resolution along the distance axis: revisiting the clutter interference zone
Peter A. Wagenhäuser, Lutz Wiegrebe, A. Leonie Baier
Journal of Experimental Biology 2020 223: jeb224311 doi: 10.1242/jeb.224311 Published 16 October 2020
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Research Article
Biosonar spatial resolution along the distance axis: revisiting the clutter interference zone
Peter A. Wagenhäuser, Lutz Wiegrebe, A. Leonie Baier
Journal of Experimental Biology 2020 223: jeb224311 doi: 10.1242/jeb.224311 Published 16 October 2020

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