Auditory processing of communication calls in interacting bats

Highlights•A competitive foraging task elicits a wide array of social behaviors in bats•IC recordings of bats revealed stronger responses to calls during social events•Neural recordings were obtained from the IC of a copulating bat•Auditory processing is modulated by social context early in the auditory pathwaySummaryThere is strong evidence that social context plays a role in the processing of acoustic signals. Yet, the circuits and mechanisms that govern this process are still not fully understood. The insectivorous big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, emits a wide array of communication calls, including food-claiming calls, aggressive calls, and appeasement calls. We implemented a competitive foraging task to explore the influence of behavioral context on auditory midbrain responses to conspecific social calls. We recorded neural population responses from the inferior colliculus (IC) of freely interacting bats and analyzed data with respect to social context. Analysis of our neural recordings from the IC shows stronger population responses to individual calls during social events. For the first time, neural recordings from the IC of a copulating bat were obtained. Our results indicate that social context enhances neuronal population responses to social vocalizations in the bat IC.