The communicative potential of bat echolocation pulses

Ecological constraints often shape the echolocation pulses emitted by bat species. Consequently some (but not all) bats emit species-specific echolocation pulses. Because echolocation pulses are often intense and emitted at high rates, they are potential targets for eavesdropping by other bats. Echolocation pulses can also vary within species according to sex, body size, age, social group and geographic location. Whether these features can be recognised by other bats can only be determined reliably by playback experiments, which have shown that echolocation pulses do provide sufficient information for the identification of sex and individual in one species. Playbacks also show that bats can locate conspecifics and heterospecifics at foraging and roost sites by eavesdropping on echolocation pulses. Guilds of echolocating bat species often partition their use of pulse frequencies. Ecology, allometric scaling and phylogeny play roles here, but are not sufficient to explain this partitioning. Evidence is accumulating to support the hypothesis that frequency partitioning evolved to facilitate intraspecific communication. Acoustic character displacement occurs in at least one instance. Future research can relate genetic population structure to regional variation in echolocation pulse features and elucidate those acoustic features that most contribute to discrimination of individuals.