During the transition from parental care to independent life, the development of adequate foraging skills is a major challenge for many juvenile mammals. However, participating in their parents’ knowledge by applying social learning strategies might facilitate this task. For several mammals, communal foraging of adults and offspring is suggested to be an important mechanism in mediating foraging-related information. For the large mammalian taxon of bats, only little is known about foraging-related social learning processes during ontogeny. It is often suggested that following their mothers during foraging flights would represent a valuable option for juveniles to socially learn about foraging, e.g., where to find resource-rich foraging patches, but explicit tests are scarce. In the present study, we investigated the foraging behavior of juvenile flower-visiting bats (Glossophaga soricina) in a dry forest in Costa Rica. We tested whether recently volant, but still nursed pups perform foraging flights alone, or whether pups follow their mothers, which would enable pups to socially learn where to feed. For that, we trained mothers and pups to feed from artificial flowers with a RFID reading system and, subsequently, conducted a field experiment to test whether RFID-tagged mothers and pups visit these flowers communally or independently. Unexpectedly, pups often encountered and visited artificial flowers near the day roost, while mothers rarely did, suggesting that they foraged somewhere further away. Our results demonstrate that still nursed juveniles perform foraging flights apart from their mothers and might learn about the spatial distribution of food without participating in their mother’s knowledge, for instance, by following other conspecifics or applying individual learning strategies. An initial potential lack of foraging success in this period is likely compensated by the ongoing maternal provisioning with breast milk and regurgitated nectar during daytime. Our results contribute to the growing body of research on the ontogeny of mammalian foraging behavior in general.

中文翻译：

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对人工 RFID 花的访问表明，幼年的访花蝙蝠会与母亲分开进行觅食飞行

在从父母照顾到独立生活的过渡过程中，培养足够的觅食技能是许多幼年哺乳动物面临的主要挑战。然而，通过应用社会学习策略来参与他们父母的知识可能会促进这项任务。对于几种哺乳动物，成年和后代的公共觅食被认为是介导觅食相关信息的重要机制。对于蝙蝠的大型哺乳动物分类群，人们对个体发育过程中与觅食相关的社会学习过程知之甚少。人们经常认为，在觅食飞行期间跟随母亲是幼鱼在社会上学习觅食的一个有价值的选择，例如，在哪里可以找到资源丰富的觅食斑块，但明确的测试很少。在目前的研究中，我们调查了哥斯达黎加干燥森林中幼花探花蝙蝠 (Glossophaga soricina) 的觅食行为。我们测试了最近是否会飞，但仍在哺乳的幼崽是否会单独进行觅食飞行，或者幼崽是否跟随它们的母亲，这将使幼崽能够学会在哪里觅食。为此，我们训练母亲和幼崽使用 RFID 读取系统从人造花中喂食，随后进行了实地实验，以测试带有 RFID 标签的母亲和幼崽是否共同或独立访问这些花。出乎意料的是，幼崽经常在白天栖息地附近遇到并参观人造花，而母亲很少这样做，这表明它们在更远的地方觅食。我们的研究结果表明，仍然接受护理的幼鱼会与母亲分开进行觅食飞行，并且可能会在不参与母亲的知识的情况下了解食物的空间分布，例如，通过跟随其他同种动物或应用个人学习策略。在此期间最初可能缺乏觅食成功，这可能会被母体在白天持续提供母乳和反流的花蜜所弥补。我们的结果有助于对哺乳动物觅食行为个体发育的研究越来越多。在此期间最初可能缺乏觅食成功，这可能会被母体在白天持续提供母乳和反流的花蜜所弥补。我们的结果有助于对哺乳动物觅食行为个体发育的研究越来越多。在此期间最初可能缺乏觅食成功，这可能会被母体在白天持续提供母乳和反流的花蜜所弥补。我们的结果有助于对哺乳动物觅食行为个体发育的研究越来越多。