Ancestry chart for the vampire bats at Organization for Bat Conservation

Click image for larger view. This is the family tree for vampire bats at Organization for Bat Conservation. This was a bit difficult to construct for a couple of reasons. The math for estimating kinship analyses from genetic markers assumes large wild populations with zero inbreeding (exactly the opposite of what we have here). For … Continue reading Ancestry chart for the vampire bats at Organization for Bat Conservation

What are “prosocial” preferences? (+ news and updates)

Recent news Vampire bat food sharing is more complicated than a strict short-term exchange of a singe commodity. They do not use previous short-term experience as the sole predictor (a literal interpretation of tit-for-tat). Food sharing is based on long-term social bonds which are fairly consistent and robust to experimental perturbations among females (manuscript in … Continue reading What are “prosocial” preferences? (+ news and updates)

You can’t help me or you won’t? What kinds of “cheats” should a food-sharing bat care about?

In response to a talk I gave at the bat meetings, some people saw a problem in the experimental design of my partner choice tests, because I had a condition where a bat can't reciprocate, but not a condition where a bat won't reciprocate. I do know that hungry bats will beg other hungry bats, … Continue reading You can’t help me or you won’t? What kinds of “cheats” should a food-sharing bat care about?

Updates: a conference talk, an outreach talk, and an article (and soon… results)

Did you know that Oct 26--Nov 1 is National Bat Week? October 23. Bat Meetings in Albany, NY. My 15-min talk is "Complex Cooperation: Food Sharing in Vampire Bats is Not Simply “Tit For  Tat” October 30. Public outreach event at the Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas entitled Vampire Bats: The Secret Lives of … Continue reading Updates: a conference talk, an outreach talk, and an article (and soon… results)

Group selection and adaptation in social spiders: an entangled web (y’see what I did there? clever wordplay)

Why biologists say group selection is wrong, but it's not, but it is... kinda. Whenever I talk about vampire bat food sharing to a public audience, someone will inevitably say something like, "Wow! It's amazing that vampire bats will feed each other to perpetuate their species" or "It's so interesting how vampire bats will act for the good of … Continue reading Group selection and adaptation in social spiders: an entangled web (y’see what I did there? clever wordplay)

Field Course in Barro Colorado Island

I just spent 2 amazing weeks at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute at Barro Colorado Island, Panama as part of a graduate student course led by Hans-Ulrich Schnitzler, Annette Denzinger, Jerry Wilkinson, and Cindy Moss-- all leading authorities on vocal behavior in bats. I worked with two German students, Diana Shoeppler and Marie Manthey, on … Continue reading Field Course in Barro Colorado Island

Recent and relevant papers– July 23, 2014

Niche-specific cognitive strategies: object memory interferes with spatial memory in the predatory bat, Myotis nattereri (Journal of Experimental Biology)-- Fruit and flower bats tend to use spatial memory over shape because those foods don't move. But insect-eating bats tend to do the opposite, perhaps because insects have distinct shapes and don't stay still. Maternal lineages best explain … Continue reading Recent and relevant papers– July 23, 2014