ScienceDaily (Mar. 24, 2008) — Researchers have developed a computer algorithm that can imitate the bat's ability to classify plants using echolocation. The study represents a collaboration between machine learning scientists and biologists studying bat orientation.

To detect plants, bats emit ultrasonic pulses and decipher the various echoes that return. Bats use plants daily as food sources and landmarks for navigation between foraging sites. Plant echoes are highly complex signals due to numerous reflections from leaves and branches. Classifying plants or other intricate objects, therefore, has been considered a troublesome task for bats and the scientific community was far from understanding how they do it.

Now, a research group in Tübingen, Germany, including University of Tübingen researchers Yossi Yovel, Peter Stilz and Hans Ulrich-Schnitzler, and Matthias Franz from the Max Planck Institute of Biological Cybernetics, has demonstrated that this process of plant classification is not as difficult as previously thought.

The group used a sonar system to emit bat-like, frequency-modulated ultrasonic pulses. The researchers recorded thousands of echoes from live plants of five species. An algorithm that uses the time-frequency information of these echoes was able to classify plants with high accuracy. This new algorithm also provides hints toward which echo characteristics might be best understood by the bats.

According to the group, these results enable us to improve our understanding of this fascinating ability of how bats classify plants, but do so without entering the bat's brain.

Journal reference: Yovel Y, Franz MO, Stilz P, Schnitzler H-U (2008). Plant Classification from Bat-Like Echolocation Signals. PLoS Comput Biol 4(3): e1000032. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000032

enlarge

Fruit bat in flight. To detect plants, bats emit ultrasonic pulses and decipher the various echoes that return. (Credit: iStockphoto/Gijs Bekenkamp)

Related Stories

Bat Sonar And Anti-Submarine Warfare (Apr. 29, 2002) — Dolphins do it. Big brown bats do it. And sometime soon, the Office of Naval Research hopes its researchers will be able to do it too. Echolocation, that is, and turning the processing of such ...  > read more

Roaring Bats: New Scientific Results Show Bats Emitting More Decibels Than A Rock Concert (May 3, 2008) — Researchers studying the echolocation behavior in bats have discovered that the diminutive flying mammals emit exceptionally loud sounds -- louder than any known animal in ...  > read more

What It's Like To Be A Bat: Vocal Sonar Does More Than Locate Objects; It Cues Memory And Assists Flight (June 28, 2008) — Not many people think about what it's like to be a bat, but for those who do, it's enlightening and potentially groundbreaking for understanding aspects of the human brain and nervous ...  > read more

To Elude Bats, A Moth Keeps Its Hearing In Tune (Dec. 30, 2006) — Current understanding of the co-evolution of bats and moths has been thrown into question following new research reported in the journal Current ...  > read more

Search ScienceDaily

Plants Under Attack