Why vampire bats network

Here are slides from the longer version (about 2x as long) of the talk I gave at the annual meeting of the North American Society for Bat Research. There was a contest at the conference for shortest title, hence the 3-word title.

Date: October 31, 2015

a lot of empirical work and theory on parental care and parent-offspring conflict.

pair bonds in voles: one of the great biology success stories

animal analogs of human friendships.

friendships have interesting traits

Vampire bats are outliers for brain and neocortex size.

A fed bat gets a large meal, but bats often miss meals & can starve after missing 2+ meals.

video showing self grooming and social grooming.

5 group-living bats are housed at OBC in Michigan. None have ectoparasites.

Self-grooming rates did not differ.

Social grooming rates did.

Vampires socially groom more than other bats.

photo source: https://www.touristmaker.com/gambia/

This is what we predict.

This is what we found.

Not the result of fishing for correlations.

Vampires don’t put all their cooperative investments (eggs) in one partner (basket).

It is becoming increasingly clear that cooperation is best understood in context of networks not dyads

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One thought on “Why vampire bats network”

Pingback: Social benefits of non-kin food sharing by female vampire bats | social bat .org — Gerald Carter

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