Bats use echolocation to navigate and hunt in darkness, and must in that process segregate target echoes from unwanted clutter echoes. Bats may do this by approaching a target at steep angles relative to the plane of the background, utilizing their directional transmission and receiving systems to minimize clutter from background objects, but it remains unknown how bats negotiate clutter that cannot be spatially avoided. Here, we tested the hypothesis that when movement no longer offers spatial release, echolocating bats mitigate clutter by calling at lower source levels and longer call intervals to ease auditory streaming. We trained five greater mouse-eared bats (Myotis myotis) to land on a spherical loudspeaker with two microphones attached. We used a phantom-echo setup, where the loudspeaker/target transmitted phantom clutter echoes by playing back the bats' own calls at time delays of 1, 3 and 5 ms with a virtual target strength 7 dB higher than the physical target. We show that the bats successfully landed on the target, irrespective of the clutter echo delays. Rather than decreasing their source levels, the bats used similar source level distributions in clutter and control trials. Similarly, the bats did not increase their call intervals, but instead used the same distribution of call intervals across control and clutter trials. These observations reject our hypothesis, leading us to conclude that bats display great resilience to clutter via short auditory integration times and acute auditory stream segregation rather than via biosonar adjustments.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: M.B.P., P.T.M., L.S.; Methodology: M.B.P., K.B., K.H., P.T.M., L.S.; Software: K.B., K.H.; Validation: M.B.P., K.B.; Formal analysis: M.B.P., K.B.; Investigation: M.B.P., A.H., K.K., A.S.U., L.S.; Resources: A.H., P.T.M.; Data curation: M.B.P., L.S.; Writing - original draft: M.B.P., P.T.M., L.S.; Writing - review & editing: M.B.P., K.B., A.H., K.K., A.S.U., K.H., P.T.M., L.S.; Visualization: M.B.P., L.S.; Supervision: K.B., P.T.M., L.S.; Project administration: M.B.P., A.H., P.T.M., L.S.; Funding acquisition: M.B.P., P.T.M.

Funding

This research was funded by a large frame grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research, Natural Sciences (Natur og Univers, Det Frie Forskningsråd, FNU) to P.T.M. and a travel grant from Frands Christian Frantsen’s Foundation (Fonden Frands Christian Frantsens Legat) to M.B.P. L.S. was funded by a research grant (grant no: 41386) from Villum Fonden. Tag development was funded by a Carlsbergfondet Semper Ardens grant to P.T.M.

Data availability

Data curated and used for this study are available on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/wcvd3/

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