Correlated evolution between body size and echolocation in bats (order Chiroptera)
BMC Ecology and Evolution, 24 (1):
44-- (2024)DOI: 10.1186/s12862-024-02231-4
Abstract
Body size and echolocation call frequencies are related in bats. However, it is unclear if this allometry applies to the entire clade. Differences have been suggested between nasal and oral emitting bats, as well as between some taxonomic families. Additionally, the scaling of other echolocation parameters, such as bandwidth and call duration, needs further testing. Moreover, it would be also interesting to test whether changes in body size have been coupled with changes in these echolocation parameters throughout bat evolution. Here, we test the scaling of peak frequency, bandwidth, and call duration with body mass using phylogenetically informed analyses for 314 bat species. We specifically tested whether all these scaling patterns differ between nasal and oral emitting bats. Then, we applied recently developed Bayesian statistical techniques based on large-scale simulations to test for the existence of correlated evolution between body mass and echolocation.