Sick vampire bats practice social distance: study

Social distance is a really simple mechanism. And it’s not just for humans. Bats also practice it for probably the longest time. However, only now is evidence of this fascinating phenomenon caused by bats and other insects. Scientists have confirmed it in their research.

It has been found that animals also have a simple mechanism to reduce the transmission of the disease. It’s very simple but very effective. When infected animals exhibit sick behavior through increased lethargy and sleep, which effectively reduces their movements and “sociality”, it is that they practice the form of social isolation and “distance”. Help.

The study was published in the journal Behavioral Ecology on Tuesday, October 27, 2020. For research, researchers captured 31 adult female vampire bats from a roost in a hollow tree in Lamanai, Belize.

Illness behavior

Researchers have created social networks from high-resolution proximity data to better understand the impact of illness behavior on relationships. Researchers then “sickened” the bats by capturing a random mass of bats and injecting lipopolysaccharide, an immune-stimulating substance. The remaining bats in the control group were injected with saline (placebo).

Proximity sensors were then glued to these bats for the next three days and then returned to the hollow tree.

How was the data collected?

Data on bat behavior was sent to scientists by a custom-made “backpack” chip glued to the animal’s back, recording the social encounters of vampire bats.

“Sensors are about how the social behavior of these bats changes from hour to hour, and even from minute to minute, between day and night, even while hidden in the darkness of hollow trees. It gave us an amazing new window, “the author of the study wrote.

Behavioral changes

Behavioral and associative changes were recorded for 16 “sick” bats and 15 healthy bats under natural conditions. After tracking the data, bats that felt “sick” were found to spend relatively little time with other bats. Researchers have noted that there is little social connection to healthy bats, both directly and indirectly. During the 6-hour treatment period for sick bats, we found that on average, there were 4 fewer companions when compared to control bats.

What are the controls in the study?

In the study, control subjects or control procedures allow comparison with results.

The control group (saline-fed bats) is composed of elements that exhibit exactly the same characteristics as the group, except for the variables that apply to the group (lipopolysaccharide-fed bats).

On average, a control bat was 49% more likely to be associated with another control bat, but only 35% more likely to be associated with a “sick” bat. Even during treatment, “sick” bats spend 25 minutes less time connecting with each partner compared to control bats. After the treatment period was over, these differences diminished when the bats slept outside the roost or sought food.

What does this mean?

Researchers said that when bats saw a disease that spread throughout their population, they changed their behavior — biological adaptations that could slow the transmission of the disease. In the midst of a pandemic, similar shared changes in social behavior have been obligatory for humans over the past few months.

For animals, empirical evidence was limited prior to the current study. Even for animals, social distance shows that it is a matter of self-preservation. And you don’t need public health advice or impediments like fines. That is common sense.

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