Evolution of inner ear neuroanatomy of bats and implications for echolocation

R. Benjamin Sulser (), Bruce D. Patterson, Daniel J. Urban, April I. Neander and Zhe-Xi Luo ()
Additional contact information
R. Benjamin Sulser: American Museum of Natural History
Bruce D. Patterson: Field Museum of Natural History
Daniel J. Urban: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
April I. Neander: The University Chicago
Zhe-Xi Luo: The University Chicago

Nature, 2022, vol. 602, issue 7897, 449-454

Abstract: Abstract Phylogenomics of bats suggests that their echolocation either evolved separately in the bat suborders Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera, or had a single origin in bat ancestors and was later lost in some yinpterochiropterans1–6. Hearing for echolocation behaviour depends on the inner ear, of which the spiral ganglion is an essential structure. Here we report the observation of highly derived structures of the spiral ganglion in yangochiropteran bats: a trans-otic ganglion with a wall-less Rosenthal’s canal. This neuroanatomical arrangement permits a larger ganglion with more neurons, higher innervation density of neurons and denser clustering of cochlear nerve fascicles7–13. This differs from the plesiomorphic neuroanatomy of Yinpterochiroptera and non-chiropteran mammals. The osteological correlates of these derived ganglion features can now be traced into bat phylogeny, providing direct evidence of how Yangochiroptera differentiated from Yinpterochiroptera in spiral ganglion neuroanatomy. These features are highly variable across major clades and between species of Yangochiroptera, and in morphospace, exhibit much greater disparity in Yangochiroptera than Yinpterochiroptera. These highly variable ganglion features may be a neuroanatomical evolutionary driver for their diverse echolocating strategies4,14–17 and are associated with the explosive diversification of yangochiropterans, which include most bat families, genera and species.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04335-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:602:y:2022:i:7897:d:10.1038_s41586-021-04335-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04335-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().