Resting posture drives the evolution of agonistic displays in bats

Abstract

Agonistic displays are one of the most diverse social behaviors that have important functions in animal's life history. However, their origin and driving factors have largely been unexplored. Here, we evaluated agonistic displays of 71 bat species across 10 families and classified these displays into two categories: (a) boxing displays where a bat attacks its opponent with its wrist and thumb and (b) pushing displays where a bat uses its head or body to hit a rival. We estimated the strength of the phylogenetic signal of the agonistic displays, revealed their origin, and tested the potential evolutionary relationships between agonistic behaviors and body size or resting posture (free hanging vs. contact hanging where the bat is in contact with some surface). We found that agonistic displays were phylogenetically conserved and that boxing displays are the ancestral state. Moreover, we found that bats with a free-hanging resting posture were more likely to exhibit boxing displays than pushing displays. In addition, bats with longer forearms do not have a higher propensity for boxing displays. This study expands our limited knowledge of the evolution of agonistic displays and highlights the importance of resting posture as a driving force in the diversity of agonistic displays.

Keywords: Chiroptera; agonistic displays; ancestral state; posture.