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Review
. 2016 Feb 5;371(1687):20150095.
doi: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0095.

Non-kin cooperation in bats

Affiliations
Review

Non-kin cooperation in bats

Gerald S Wilkinson et al. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. .

Abstract

Many bats are extremely social. In some cases, individuals remain together for years or even decades and engage in mutually beneficial behaviours among non-related individuals. Here, we summarize ways in which unrelated bats cooperate while roosting, foraging, feeding or caring for offspring. For each situation, we ask if cooperation involves an investment, and if so, what mechanisms might ensure a return. While some cooperative outcomes are likely a by-product of selfish behaviour as they are in many other vertebrates, we explain how cooperative investments can occur in several situations and are particularly evident in food sharing among common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) and alloparental care by greater spear-nosed bats (Phyllostomus hastatus). Fieldwork and experiments on vampire bats indicate that sharing blood with non-kin expands the number of possible donors beyond kin and promotes reciprocal help by strengthening long-term social bonds. Similarly, more than 25 years of recapture data and field observations of greater spear-nosed bats reveal multiple cooperative investments occurring within stable groups of non-kin. These studies illustrate how bats can serve as models for understanding how cooperation is regulated in social vertebrates.

Keywords: by-product mutualism; group augmentation; partner choice; reciprocity; spear-nosed bats; vampire bats.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Distributions of regurgitation donations (more than 5 s) between adult (more than 2 years) wild [68] and a random sample of captive vampire bats [74]. N = 36 regurgitations in both cases (points jittered to prevent overlap). Shaded areas show probability density. Mean duration (and boot-strapped 95% confidence interval) of regurgitations were 68.0 s (52–85 s) and 65.9 s (49–87 s) in captive and wild bats, respectively. Kinship did not predict regurgitation duration in either captive (r2 = 0.0005, p = 0.9) or wild bats (r2 = 0.005, p = 0.7, permuted linear regression). (Online version in colour.)
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Photos of greater spear-nosed bats illustrating (a) a female group in a cave ceiling depression, (b) a crèche of pups and (c) an adult female babysitting pups. (Online version in colour.)

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