Gloriana Chaverri, Universidad de Costa Rica: Acoustic communication during the location of ephemeral roosts in Spix's disc-winged bats

The neotropical insectivorous bat, Thyroptera tricolor, or Spix’s disc-winged bat, is known to form extremely cohesive social aggregations despite moving daily between roost-sites. My research over the last 13 years shows that T. tricolor uses a combination of two social signals, “inquiry” and “response” calls, to locate each other during flight and while roosting. In my talk, I will focus on the role that these social calls play in maintaining cohesive groups, and the causes and consequences of the variation in vocal behavior we see within and among groups.