My Research
The mating song that jams bat echolocation
Mating signals are notoriously dangerous for the sender because they serve as a guiding cue for predators. Therefore, courting animals respond with diverse antipredator strategies. Most of those strategies, however, reduce the time for attracting mating partners or the quality of the mating signal. Here we test the novel hypothesis that exceptionally conspicuous mating signals can overwhelm the sensory systems of predators and therefore offer protection for their senders. In this study, we used acoustic tracking of aggregations of green conehead bush-crickets (Ruspolia nitidula) singing in wild habitats, metabarcoding analysis of the diet of bats and behavioural experiments in controlled lab conditions. Our results suggest that choruses of singing green conehead bush-crickets can create a field of continuous intense broadband sound that jam the echolocation of foraging bats including when the bats are targeting nearby aerial prey.
Risk-avoidance behaviour and age
Prey rarely sense predators as just present or absent. In most cases, predators pose varying levels of threat to animals involved in conspicuous behaviours (such as courting). To reflect that, prey species adjust their courtship behaviour to the varying levels of threat – trading-off predator avoidance with finding mating partners. Age, however, could also influence the anti-predator behaviour of courting animals. Thus, from one side prey species have to respond to the immediate changes in the environment; from another, they have to adjust their anti-predator behaviour in time as they grow older. To investigate the cumulative effect of those behavioural adjustments we tested 1) how prey species with conspicuous mating signals react to different predation threat levels and 2) how this reaction changes as the animals age. Our results show that both young and old buschrickets assess the threat and respond accordingly, however, the response gets weaker for older animals. We argue that this is because the older the animals are getting lesser their mating opportunities are becoming. Consequently, avoiding predation is getting less beneficial. Our results highlight the great flexibility in two of the most important tasks for every prey species – avoiding being eaten and finding a mating partner – and how they are balancing those tasks in a long run to ensure the best use of their available resources.
Art and Science
Scientists recognise biodiversity loss as one of the major challenges for humanity yet the general public worldwide is poorly aware of the problem. While conservation biology is moving fast towards solutions, the gap between those efforts and the understanding of the problem from the general public is closing at a much slower rate. Thus, communicating effectively is key to the successful implementation of scientific knowledge. However, many scientists do not engage in science communication because they do not have time, do not feel comfortable talking in front of a non-scientific audience or simply are not trained in effective outreach strategies. This is a project where we work in close collaboration with artists, theatre directors, sociologists and researchers in an attempt to close the gap between the build-up scientific knowledge and the general public. Our results suggest that the emerging field of scientific theatre can provide well-grounded and long-lasting awareness of the importance of endangered species and the environmental issues they face.
The diet of the mouse-eared bats
Understanding how closely related species co-exist is the baseline for most ecological research. Here we use DNA metabarcoding to study the fine-scale differences in the diet of the greater and the lesser mouse-eared bats. The study is a part of a bigger international project with Laura Stidsholt from Aarhus Universiti, Denmark and Stefan Graif, Tel Aviv University, Israel.