Strong matrilineal structure in common pipistrelle bats (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) is associated with variability in echolocation calls

• Published in: Biological Journal of the Linnean Society
• Main Authors: Fornuskova, Alena, Petit, Eric, Bartonicka, Tomas, Kanuch, Peter, Butet, Alain, Zdenek, Rehak, Bryja, Josef
• Other Authors: Masaryk University Brno (MUNI), Ecosystèmes, biodiversité, évolution Rennes (ECOBIO), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Rennes (OSUR)-Institut Ecologie et Environnement (INEE), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Rennes 1 (UR1), Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES)-Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES), Department of Population Biology, Academy of Sciences, Czech Academy of Sciences Prague (CAS), Écologie et santé des écosystèmes (ESE), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-AGROCAMPUS OUEST, Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro), Institute of Forest Ecology SAS, Czech Science Foundation (206/06/0954) and the Long-Term Research Plan (MSM 0021622416) of Masaryk University for financial support; French Government for the financial support of AF’s Master study at the University of Rennes 1
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2014
• Subjects: dialects; vocal learning; sex-biased dispersal; maternal effects; philopatry; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; Pipistrellus pipistrellus
• Online Access: https://hal-univ-rennes1.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01082581; https://doi.org/10.1111/bij.12381

International audience The ontogeny and heritability of echolocation, an important sense in echolocating bats, is still not completely understood. Intraspecific variation in echolocation calls can be high, although the importance of possible explanatory variables (e.g. age, sex, social groups) remains largely unknown. Echolocation pulse features may vary among maternity roosts and this can theoretically be caused either by intercolony genetic differences or by vocal dialects learned during ontogeny within a roost (or a combination of both). In the present study, we analyzed intraspecific variation in echolocation parameters in relation to genetic structure at bi-parentally inherited microsatellites and maternally inherited mitochondrial (mt)DNA in maternal colonies of Pipistrelluspipistrellus in Central Europe. We found that individual colonies differ significantly in mtDNA, whereas the structure on nuclear markers is almost absent. This suggests a typical temperate bat social structure pattern, with strong sex-biased dispersal (i.e. philopatric females and dispersing males) (up to 92% of males leave their birth place according to our results). However, we show for the first time that genetic differentiation among mtDNA matrilines is associated with significant intercolony echolocation parameter differences. Because the genetic component of echolocation is not likely to be encoded by mtDNA, the results support the hypothesis of maternal echolocation dialect transmission to offspring, and the role of learning in this process is discussed.