NEWS

[11/2023] New paper out at Current Biology:

"Stealth echolocation in aerial hawking bats reflects a substrate gleaning ancestry". Is the barbastelle bat's hunting on moths with low-intensity echolocation the classic example for predator-prey coevolution it was thought to be? No: here we show that its hunting strategy likely evolved from a quiet gleaning ancestor and is not a direct adaption to its preys’ hearing ability.  

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[09/2023] New paper out at J Exp Biol:

"Calibrated microphone array recordings reveal that a gleaning bat emits low-intensity echolocation calls even in open-space habitat", the second paper of Léna's MSc, describes our system sound-based 3D-tracking of bats, its calibration and precision, and provides evidence that the gleaning brown long-eared bat is restricted in the maximum intensity of its echolocation calls.  

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[07/2023] New paper out at Metabarcoding and Metagenomics:

"DNA metabarcoding data from faecal samples of the lesser (Myotis blythii) and the greater (Myotis myotis) mouse-eared bats from Bulgaria", the new PhD paper by Toni, presents an extensive genetic analysis of the faeces of two Myotis species, detailing their prey, the prey of their prey, and even various parasites, enabling further analysis of ecological interactions including of predators and prey and hosts and parasites. 

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[05/2023] New paper out at JASA & podcast & lay-summary:

"Temperate bats may alter calls to partially compensate for weather-induced changes in detection distance." Weather conditions change daily and over the seasons, causing variation in the maximum distance over which bats can detect objects (because sound attenuation depends on weather). In this first paper of Léna's MSc thesis, we show that few bats adjust call parameters to weather conditions, but cannot maintain constant object detection distance.

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[04/2023] Check out our new paper at eLife

"Echolocating bats prefer a high risk-high gain foraging strategy to increase prey profitability", spearheaded by Laura Stidsholt from Aarhus Uni! Biologging, flight room experiments, DNA metabarcoding: all there. We show how mouse eared bats switch between ground-gleaning and aerial hawking to optimize energy intake matched to environmental dynamics.

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[02/2023] Public evening talk at the Naturkundemuseum Karlsruhe

"Nächtliche Jäger: Wie Fledermäuse mit den Ohren sehen – und was Insekten dagegen tun". I enjoyed it a lot, thanks for the invite, the questions, and the great exhibition "Von Sinnen"!

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[07/2022] Habilitation in Zoology, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich

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[09/2021] Habilitation thesis submitted today to the LMU Munich.

                (Should you wonder what a habilitation is...: Neuweiler 1996, Nature)

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[09/2021] The first version of this webpage goes online. Feedback welcome; more content to be added.

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[06/2021] *** Heisenberg award! *** The DFG (German Research Foundation) grants me a 5-year Heisenberg award, together with a research grant for two PhD students, to investigate sensory-behavioural algorithms in predator-prey-interactions.

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Older research news here