Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Evidence for unfamiliar kin recognition in vampire bats

View ORCID ProfileSimon P. Ripperger, View ORCID ProfileRachel A. Page, Frieder Mayer, View ORCID ProfileGerald G. Carter
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.16.874057
Simon P. Ripperger
1Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, OH 43210, USA
2Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz-Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, 10115 Berlin, Germany
3Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Republic of Panama
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Simon P. Ripperger
  • For correspondence: simon.ripperger@gmail.com carter.1640@osu.edu
Rachel A. Page
3Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Republic of Panama
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Rachel A. Page
Frieder Mayer
2Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz-Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, 10115 Berlin, Germany
4Berlin Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (BBIB), 14195 Berlin, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Gerald G. Carter
1Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, OH 43210, USA
3Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Republic of Panama
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Gerald G. Carter
  • For correspondence: simon.ripperger@gmail.com carter.1640@osu.edu
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Kin discrimination allows organisms to preferentially cooperate with kin, reduce kin competition, and avoid inbreeding. In vertebrates, kin discrimination often occurs through prior association. There is less evidence for recognition of unfamiliar kin. Here, we present the first evidence of unfamiliar kin recognition in bats. We captured female vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) from a single roost, allowed them to breed in captivity for 22 months, then released 17 wild-caught females and six captive-born daughters back into the same wild roost. We then used custom-built proximity sensors to track the free-ranging social encounters among the previously captive bats and 27 tagged control bats from the same roost. Using microsatellite-based relatedness estimates, we found that previously captive bats preferentially associated with related control bats, and that captive-born bats preferentially associated with unfamiliar kin among control bats. Closer analyses showed that these unfamiliar-kin-biased associations were not caused by mothers or other familiar close kin, because the kinship bias was evident even when those bats were not nearby. This striking evidence for unfamiliar kin recognition in vampire bats warrants further investigation and provides new hypotheses for how cooperative relationships might be driven synergistically by both social experience and phenotypic similarity.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted December 16, 2019.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Evidence for unfamiliar kin recognition in vampire bats
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Evidence for unfamiliar kin recognition in vampire bats
Simon P. Ripperger, Rachel A. Page, Frieder Mayer, Gerald G. Carter
bioRxiv 2019.12.16.874057; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.16.874057
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Evidence for unfamiliar kin recognition in vampire bats
Simon P. Ripperger, Rachel A. Page, Frieder Mayer, Gerald G. Carter
bioRxiv 2019.12.16.874057; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.16.874057

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Animal Behavior and Cognition
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (3483)
  • Biochemistry (7336)
  • Bioengineering (5305)
  • Bioinformatics (20219)
  • Biophysics (9990)
  • Cancer Biology (7713)
  • Cell Biology (11280)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (6426)
  • Ecology (9928)
  • Epidemiology (2065)
  • Evolutionary Biology (13294)
  • Genetics (9353)
  • Genomics (12565)
  • Immunology (7686)
  • Microbiology (18979)
  • Molecular Biology (7428)
  • Neuroscience (40940)
  • Paleontology (300)
  • Pathology (1226)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2132)
  • Physiology (3145)
  • Plant Biology (6850)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1272)
  • Synthetic Biology (1893)
  • Systems Biology (5306)
  • Zoology (1086)