Maternal behavior influences vocal practice and learning processes in the greater sac-winged bat
Data files
May 23, 2025 version files 948.61 KB
Abstract
Learning, particularly vocal learning, is often a social process. In human infants, it is well-established that social interactions influence speech acquisition and are hypothesized to modulate attentiveness and sensory processes, thereby affecting the speech-learning process. However, our understanding of how social interactions shape vocal ontogenetic processes in non-human mammals, particularly those which vocally learn, remains limited. In the bat Saccopteryx bilineata, pups acquire the adult vocal repertoire through a distinctive babbling behavior that shows interesting similarities to human infant babbling. While babbling encompasses many different syllable types, it is particularly noteworthy that pups learn song syllables by imitating adult singing males. The pups’ social environment involves frequent interactions with their mothers, whereas adult males mainly serve as the primary source of acoustic input. We monitored the vocal ontogeny of 19 wild pups of two populations, investigating whether their social environment (i.e. maternal influence, number of singing tutors) influenced three aspects of babbling: the amount of vocal practice, the pups’ final syllable repertoire size and the production of the syllable types acquired through vocal learning. The results demonstrate that maternal behavioral displays significantly influence the amount of vocal practice, the presence and versatility of song syllable types in babbling and the percentage of mature song syllables. Our findings show that maternal feedback plays a significant role in the vocal ontogeny and learning processes of S. bilineata, thus enhancing our understanding of the relationship between social feedback and vocal development in mammalian vocal learners. The shared files contain the raw data used for our analyses.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.7wm37pw4s
Description of the data and file structure
README file for “Maternal behavior influences vocal practice and learning processes in the greater sac-winged bat”
Authors: Ahana A. Fernandez, Nora Serve, Sarah-Cecil Fabian, Mirjam Knörnschild
This README file describes the data files accompanying the above publication. Each file includes a Readme sheet with variable definitions. For any further queries please contact fernandez.aurora.ahana@gmail.com
1.File name: Fernandez et al 2025_01_Focal pups_list_ontogenetic information.xlsx with 1 data sheet
File description: General information on the pups of the study.
2.File name: Fernandez et al 2025_02_Vocal practice_Repertoire size_Data.xlsx with 2 data sheets
Excel sheet name: S1_Vocal practice
Excel sheet description: This data sheet contains the raw data to investigate the influence of the social environmental factors and pup age on the amount of vocal practice. Source data 1 (S1) for Figure 1D, Table 1A, and Table S2.
Excel sheet name: S2_Babb phase_Repe size
Excel sheet description: This data sheet contains the raw data to calculate the influence of social factors on the babbling phase duration and for calculating the correlations between social factors and the pup´s final repertoire size. Source data 2 (S2) for Figure 1E, Table 1B, Final repertoire size, additional data on *Maternal influence of the social environment on learned syllables *(supplementary material).
3.File name: Fernandez et al 2025_03_Learned syllables_Data.xlsx with 3 data sheets
Excel sheet name: S3_Learned syllables
This data sheet contains the raw data to investigate the influence of the social environmental factors and pup age on the number of learned song syllables and versatility in babbling bouts. Source data (S3) for Figure 2B-C, Table 2A-B, *The influence of the social environment on learned syllables *(supplementary material).
Excel sheet name: S4_Precursor-Mature syllables
This data sheet contains the raw data to investigate the influence of the social environmental factors and pup age on the amount of vocal practice. Source data (S4) for Figure 2D, Table 2C.
Excel sheet name: S5_supplements
This data sheet contains the raw data (S5) for the supplementary material The influence of the social environment on learned syllables.
4.File name: Fernandez et al 2025_04_Acoustic Data.xlsx with 2 data sheets
Excel sheet name: S6_Acoustic raw data
The file contains the acoustic raw data for the calculation of the principal component and discriminant function analyses. The resulting Euclidean distances were used to calculate pup acoustic change. Source data (S6) for Figure 2E, Figure S4.
Excel sheet name: S7_Acoustic movement
This file contains the Euclidean distances to calculate the pup´s acoustic movement during ontogeny (in relation to maternal activity score). Source data (S7) for Figure 2E, Figure S4.
Code/software
Software to view my data: Microsoft office (Excel)
For statistical analysis R-Studio and SPSS (not free version) were used.