1. Evolutionary aspects of bat echolocation
- Author
-
Gerhard Neuweiler
- Subjects
Behavioral Neuroscience ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Physiology ,Bat echolocation ,medicine ,Animal Science and Zoology ,Inner ear ,Human echolocation ,Biology ,Neuroscience ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,Cochlea - Abstract
This review is yet another attempt to explain how echolocation in bats or bat-like mammals came into existence. Attention is focused on neuronal specializations in the ascending auditory pathway of echolocating bats. Three different mechanisms are considered that may create a specific auditory sensitivity to echos: (1) time-windows of enhanced echo-processing opened by a corollary discharge of neuronal vocalization commands; (2) differentiation and expansion of ensembles of combination-sensitive neurons in the midbrain; and (3) corticofugal top-down modulations. The second part of the review interprets three different types of echolocation as adaptations to ecological niches, and presents the sophisticated cochlear specializations in constant-frequency/frequency-modulated bats as a case study of finely tuned differentiation. It is briefly discussed how a resonant mechanism in the inner ear of constant-frequency/frequency-modulated bats may have evolved in common mammalian cochlea.
- Published
- 2003