Researcher discovers unique
mechanism bats use to overcome communication interference in the wild
Date: January 28, 2016
Source: American Friends of Tel
Aviv University
Individual bats emit sonar calls
in the dark, using the echo of their signature sounds to identify and target
potential prey. But because they travel in large groups, their signals often
"jam" each other, a problem resembling extreme radar interference.
How do bats overcome this "cocktail party" cacophony to feed and
survive in the wild?
A new Tel Aviv University study
published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological
Sciences identifies the mechanism that allows individual bats to stand out
from the crowd. The research, by Dr. Yossi Yovel of TAU's Department of
Zoology, finds that individual bats manage to avoid noise overlap by increasing
the volume, duration and repetition rate of their signals.
According to Dr. Yovel, unlocking
the mystery of bat echo recognition may offer a valuable insight into military
and civilian radar systems, which are vulnerable to electronic interference.
Cocktail party chatter
"Imagine you are at a
cocktail party where everyone is uttering the same word over and over again,
and you are expected to recognize the echo of your own utterance to identify
the location of the punch bowl," Dr. Yovel said. "Now imagine that
this is tantamount to your survival. This is the bat experience. Bats often fly
in groups and rely on sounds -- very similar sounds -- to find their food. They
deal with two challenges: They need to detect weak echoes in a cluster of
noise, and if they manage to receive the echo, they need to recognize it as
their own."
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