Learning to adapt to changes in the environment is highly beneficial. This is especially true for echolocating bats that forage in diverse environments, moving between open spaces to highly complex ones. Bats are known for their ability to rapidly adjust their sensing according to auditory information gathered from the environment within milliseconds but can they also benefit from longer adaptive processes? In this study, we examined adult bats’ ability to slowly adapt their sensing strategy to a new type of environment they have never experienced for such long durations, and to then maintain this learned echolocation strategy over time. We show that over a period of weeks, Pipistrellus kuhlii bats gradually adapt their pre-takeoff echolocation sequence when moved to a constantly cluttered environment. After adopting this improved strategy, the bats retained an ability to instantaneously use it when placed back in a similarly cluttered environment, even after spending many months in a significantly less cluttered environment. We demonstrate long-term adaptive flexibility in sensory acquisition in adult animals. Our study also gives further insight into the importance of sensory planning in the initiation of a precise sensorimotor behavior such as approaching for landing.

中文翻译：

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成年回声定位蝙蝠运动感觉序列的适应性学习和回忆


学习适应环境的变化是非常有益的。对于在不同环境中觅食、在开放空间和高度复杂的空间之间移动的回声定位蝙蝠来说尤其如此。蝙蝠因其能够根据在几毫秒内从环境中收集的听觉信息快速调整其感知能力而闻名，但它们也能从更长的适应过程中受益吗？在这项研究中，我们检查了成年蝙蝠缓慢调整其感知策略以适应它们从未经历过如此长时间的新型环境的能力，然后随着时间的推移保持这种习得的回声定位策略。我们发现，在几周的时间里，库氏蝙蝠在移动到一个不断混乱的环境中时逐渐适应了起飞前的回声定位序列。采用这种改进的策略后，蝙蝠在被放回到类似杂乱的环境中时仍然保留了立即使用它的能力，即使是在杂乱程度明显减少的环境中度过了数月之后。我们展示了成年动物感官获取的长期适应性灵活性。我们的研究还进一步深入了解了感官规划在启动精确的感觉运动行为（例如接近着陆）中的重要性。