April 24 at Noon in Simon Hall 101

WILLIAM CONNER
Wake Forest University

Sound Strategies: The 65 Million-Year-Old Battle Between Bats and Insects

Abstract

For over 50 years researchers have described the intimate details of how bats and moths have coevolved. The bat-moth story began with the discovery of bat sonar, an exquisite ultrasonic system for tracking prey though the night sky. Moths countered with ears tuned to the high frequencies of bat echolocation. Moths take evasion action with loops, spirals, drops, and powerdives. Some bat species responded by moving the frequency and intensity of their echolocation cries away from the peak sensitivity of moth ears and the arms race was on. Tiger moths countered by producing anti-bat sounds.  Do the sounds advertise moth toxicity like the bright coloration of butterflies, do they startle the bat giving the moth a momentary advantage in their aerobatic battle, or do they jam the sonar of the bat?  The answer is a resounding yes. They do all and more in different situations and in different species. Beetles, mantids, true crickets, mole crickets, katydids, green lacewings and locusts have similar anti-bat strategies and we have just scratched the surface. In an exciting new twist researchers are taking the technologies developed in the laboratory back into the field, where they are poised to appreciate the full richness of this remarkable predator-prey interaction. 

Sponsored by CISAB ~~~~~ Hosted by Laura Hurley