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Tracking sickness effects on social encounters via continuous proximity sensing in wild vampire bats

Author

Listed:
  • Simon P Ripperger
  • Sebastian Stockmaier
  • Gerald G Carter
  • Noa Pinter-Wollman

Abstract

Sickness behaviors can slow the spread of pathogens across a social network. We conducted a field experiment to investigate how sickness behavior affects individual connectedness over time using a dynamic social network created from high-resolution proximity data. After capturing adult female vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) from a roost, we created “sick” bats by injecting a random half of bats with the immune-challenging substance, lipopolysaccharide, while the control group received saline injections. Over the next 3 days, we used proximity sensors to continuously track dyadic associations between 16 “sick” bats and 15 control bats under natural conditions. Compared to control bats, “sick” bats associated with fewer bats, spent less time near others, and were less socially connected to more well-connected individuals (sick bats had on average a lower degree, strength, and eigenvector centrality). High-resolution proximity data allow researchers to flexibly define network connections (association rates) based on how a particular pathogen is transmitted (e.g., contact duration of >1 vs. >60 min, contact proximity of

Suggested Citation

  • Simon P Ripperger & Sebastian Stockmaier & Gerald G Carter & Noa Pinter-Wollman, 2020. "Tracking sickness effects on social encounters via continuous proximity sensing in wild vampire bats," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 31(6), pages 1296-1302.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:beheco:v:31:y:2020:i:6:p:1296-1302.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/araa111
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