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Researchers from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin have discovered that social vocalizations of bats can provide important insights into their individual personality traits. The study, published in the renowned journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that proactivity, curiosity, and boldness are closely linked to the amount of social calls produced in the nectar-feeding bat Glossophaga soricina handleyi.
Bats are known for their complex social structures and acoustic communication forms. As part of her dissertation, Theresa Schabacker studied the behavior of 60 wild male Glossophaga soricina handleyi bats in Costa Rica. In various test scenarios – including an unknown environment, a novel object, and a foraging opportunity in a risky situation – the researchers analyzed the animals' behavior and social calls. The study revealed that particularly curious and bold individuals were more likely to emit social calls.
"Our results suggest that bats can not only communicate directly with conspecifics through their social vocalizations but also provide clues about their personality," explains Theresa Schabacker, lead author of the study. This could help conspecifics assess individual personality traits from a distance and shape social interactions accordingly.
The findings could have far-reaching implications for understanding the social dynamics of bat communities. Individuals identified as particularly proactive or bold, based on their social calling behaviour could play a central role in group structures or influence cooperative relationships.
The study raises exciting new questions: How do these individual differences influence social networks in the long term? Are the calls intentional signals or merely unconscious indicators of the animals' internal arousal states? Further investigations could clarify to what extent these calls influence group coordination or mate selection.
The research was conducted by the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin in collaboration with the Freie Universität Berlin, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Wageningen University, and was funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Originalpublikation: Schabacker, T., Castiglione, R., Snijders, L., Knörnschild, M. (2025). "Social vocalizations
indicate behavioural type in Glossophagine bats." Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 292, 20242217. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2024.2217
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