Does stereotyping impact cooperative behavior?

Researchers from Penn and Princeton develop a model to evaluate how reputation and indirect reciprocity affects cooperative behaviors

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

In the complicated world of human interactions, helping others can come back around, a concept known as indirect reciprocity. It’s like a societal credit score, where one’s good deeds build up a good reputation, prompting others to return the favor in the future. But what if this credit score wasn’t just a single individual’s but shared with a group they’re associated with? 

In a paper published in PLOS Computational Biology, Mari Kawakatsu, a postdoctoral researcher in the Plotkin Research Group at the University of Pennsylvania, and Sebastián Michel-Mata, a graduate researcher at Princeton University, investigated the extent to which stereotypes undermine indirect reciprocity.

“Prior work has shown that cooperation can be sustained when individuals condition their behavior on the reputation of each individual they’re interacting with,” Kawakatsu says. “But in a large society it might be cognitively costly to keep track of everyone’s past actions to determine their individual reputations. Instead, people might rely on proxies based on group memberships, like stereotypes. So, we developed a model of indirect reciprocity based on group-level reputations and studied when and how the use of stereotypes helps or harms cooperation.”

In explaining the team’s rationale, senior author Joshua Plotkin of Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences analogizes with a scenario describing a loan applicant, known for their dedication to weightlifting, stepping into a bank, their financial fate hanging not just on their own creditworthiness but also on the collective reputation of weightlifters as perceived by the bank.

When the bank leans on stereotypes, simplifying its decision-making process by attributing the traits of a group to an individual, the nuances of personal behavior and reliability can be overshadowed, he says. If the stereotype is positive—perhaps weightlifters are seen as disciplined and committed—the loan applicant benefits from a halo effect, their individual merits amplified by the perceived virtues of their group. 

This symbiosis of individual and stereotyped reputations can streamline interactions, yet it carries the risk of inaccuracies, glossing over the unique aspects of the person in question, Plotkin explains. The situation grows more complex and potentially unfair when the stereotype is negative, casting a shadow over the applicant’s genuine qualifications and efforts. In this light, the bank’s reliance on group-based reputations, while efficient, can lead to a skewed assessment of creditworthiness, undermining indirect reciprocity.

To model the effects of stereotypes on cooperative behavior, Kawakatsu and the team used a game-theoretics approach wherein two types of reputations are used: one assigned to individuals and one assigned to groups. A donor can decide whether to help or not based on either the receiver’s individual reputation or the stereotyped reputation of the group to which the receiver belongs. To develop a stereotype, the donor observes a random member of the recipient’s group and assigns a reputation to the entire group based on this single observation. This approach simplifies decision-making but introduces the risk of inaccuracies in the reputational feedback loop, which is central to indirect reciprocity.

The model suggests that individuals might rely on generalized stereotypes rather than specific individual actions when individual-level information is costly to access. This reliance on stereotypes is described as “sticky,” meaning that, once the use of stereotypes is adopted, it tends to persist within the population, even when using individual-based reputations might lead to more optimal outcomes for cooperation.

“The model shows that stereotypes can significantly reduce the level of cooperation. When individuals rely on stereotypes, they may ‘free ride’ on the perceived general reputation of their group without contributing positively themselves,” says coauthor Taylor Kessinger, a postdoctoral researcher in the Plotkin Research Group. “This behavior can lead to a decrease in overall cooperation, as individuals are less likely to engage in cooperative behaviors if they believe their personal actions will not be recognized on an individual basis but will instead be overshadowed by group-based stereotypes.”

“Even if individuals recognize that using individual-based reputations could lead to better cooperative outcomes, the entrenched nature of stereotyping behavior can make it challenging for the population to shift away from this approach,” Kawakatsu says.

Plotkin, however, points out that stereotypes can sometimes enhance cooperation in their mathematical model, if they are shared more broadly than individual reputations. The findings reveal insights into the dynamics of cooperation, suggesting that while stereotypes usually disrupt the feedback loop necessary for sustaining cooperation, the level of cooperation also depends on how widely information is shared. 

“As a next step, we’re interested in learning more about how cognitively inexpensive information-gathering methods, like gossip, can help communities reach consensus about their views of others,” Kawakatsu says.

Mari Kawakatsu is a postdoctoral researcher in the Plotkin Research Group at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts & Sciences.

Joshua Plotkin is the Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor of the Natural Sciences at Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences.

Taylor Kessinger is a postdoctoral researcher in the Plotkin Research Group in the School of Arts & Sciences at Penn.

The other authors are Sebastián Michel-Mata and Corina E. Tarnita of Princeton University. 

This research was supported by funding from the James S. McDonnell Foundation (Postdoctoral Fellowship Award doi:10.37717/2021-3209), Army Research Office (Grant W911NF-18-1-0325), John Templeton Foundation (Grant n62281), and Simons Foundation (Math+X grant to the University of Pennsylvania).

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JOURNAL

PLoS Computational Biology

DOI

10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011862 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

When do stereotypes undermine indirect reciprocity?

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Mar-2024

Older adults want to express themselves with emojis, they just don’t understand how to

Improving older adults’ understanding of emojis use could help combat ageism, reduce loneliness, according to new study from University of Ottawa

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA

 

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A NEW STUDY FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA IS PROVIDING INSIGHT INTO HOW DIFFERENT GENERATIONS ARE INTERPRETING THE USE OF EMOJIS IN THEIR COMMUNICATIONS, WITH OLDER ADULTS UNSURE OF HOW TO USE THEM AS FREQUENTLY AS YOUNGER ADULTS DESPITE UNDERSTANDING THEIR MEANING. 

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CREDIT: ALBERTE DE MANUELLA, UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA

A new study from the University of Ottawa is providing insight into how different generations are interpreting the use of emojis in their communications, with older adults unsure of how to use them as frequently as younger adults despite understanding their meaning. 

The stereotype of older adults being unable or unwilling to adapt to new forms of lingo like emojis may not be accurate, according to research from the University of Ottawa (uOttawa)which suggests older adults understand their meanings but lack the confidence to incorporate them in their technology-mediated interactions. 

“We found that older users are less likely to use emojis, use fewer emojis, and feel less comfortable in their ability to interpret emojis,” says the study’s lead author Isabelle Boutet, an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology (Faculty of Social Sciences) at uOttawa. “Our results, together with those of other studies, suggest that reduced accuracy in emoji interpretation does not drive these age-related effects.” 

Measuring emoji adaptation

This first comprehensive investigation into inter-generational emoji use including adults over 60 allowed the capture of age and generation-related differences in emoji use. Researchers measured emoji adoption (frequency, diversity, ease of interpretation, and interpretation accuracy) to understand how age influences emoji use. 

The emoji representing surprise – the graphic featuring the small yellow face looking speechless with its eyes wide open and eyebrows raised – proved to be the most difficult emoji to interpret for older adults. Happiness was the next most difficult to interpret.

The use of emojis by increasing age revealed how users perceive emojis as difficult to use, have less confidence in their ability to use them, and are less likely to use technology where emojis are pervasive. 

“This pattern of results leads us to conclude that older users have the motivation and ability to utilize emojis, but they lack the confidence and general technology expertise needed to adapt to this mode of communication,” says Boutet.

Helping older users

Boutet believes it is important to promote the use of emojis for older adults because of their communicative function and ability to facilitate intergenerational interactions, reduce loneliness, and help users of all ages fulfill their social and emotional goals. 

“Software developers could consider modifying existing emoji menus to facilitate their use across generations by, for example, making unambiguous emojis which older users are able to interpret more easily accessible. Training interventions should also be incorporated to existing community-based programs to help older users to incorporate emojis in their online interactions,” adds Boutet.

  

French version: A new study from the University of Ottawa is providing insight into how different generations are interpreting the use of emojis in their communications, with older adults unsure of how to use them as frequently as younger adults despite understanding their meaning. 

CREDIT

Alberte De Manuella, University of Ottawa

JOURNAL

Computers in Human Behavior Reports

DOI

10.1016/j.chbr.2024.100379 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Are older adults adapting to new forms of communication? A study on emoji adoption across the adult lifespan

Factors associated with age-related hearing loss differ between males and females

Weight, smoking, and hormone exposure show varying links with risk of age-related hearing loss, per study of 2,349 males and females

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

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THE STUDY SUGGESTS THAT FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH AGE-RELATED HEARING LOSS DIFFER BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES.

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CREDIT: MARK PATON, UNSPLASH, CC0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/PUBLICDOMAIN/ZERO/1.0/)

Certain factors associated with developing age-related hearing loss differ by sex, including weight, smoking behavior, and hormone exposure, according to a study published on March 6, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Dong Woo Nam from Chungbuk National University Hospital, South Korea, and colleagues.

Age-related hearing loss (ARHL), slowly-advancing difficulty in hearing high-frequency sounds, makes spoken communication more challenging, often leading to loneliness and depression. Roughly 1 in 5 people around the world suffer from hearing loss, and this number is expected to rise as the global population ages. Since ARHL is irreversible, identifying it early and taking preventative measures are especially important. To better understand the factors associated with ARHL, and how the relative influence of these factors is shaped by sex, the researchers analyzed check-up health examination data from 2,349 participants aged over 60. After gathering each participant’s medical history and performing blood tests, a body composition test, and a basic hearing test, they ran statistical analyses to identify factors most strongly associated with ARHL risk for males and females.

The researchers found that while some factors – such as age – were associated with ARHL regardless of gender, others were differently associated with ARHL risk in males and females. For example, while being underweight showed a significant association with ARHL in males, both low weight and obesity showed significant associations in females. Smoking was associated with increased ARHL risk in males only, who were far more likely than females to identify as smokers in this sample population. Females who started menstruating at an earlier age were less likely to develop ARHL later in life, pointing towards a possible protective effect of the hormone estrogen.

This study does not allow elucidation of causal relationships between these factors and hearing loss, and further experimental studies will be necessary to confirm and better interpret these findings. However, the authors propose that assessing and counseling patients about their smoking behavior, weight, and menstruation may help improve screening and preventative treatment for ARHL.

The authors add: “Hearing loss should be prevented, even it is related to aging.”

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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0298048

Citation: Nam DW, Park M-H, Jeong SJ, Lee KL, Kim JW, Jeong JB (2024) Sex differences in associated factors for age-related hearing loss. PLoS ONE 19(3): e0298048. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298048

Author Countries: Republic of Korea

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0298048 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Sex differences in associated factors for age-related hearing loss

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Mar-2024

 

University of Virginia researchers win 2024 Responsible Business Education Award for Police Reform Study in India

"Policing in patriarchy" study by Sandip Sukhtankar and Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner praised for prompting reforms in police responses to cases of gender-based violence against women in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA COLLEGE AND GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS & SCIENCES

A police reform study, led by University of Virginia professors Sandip Sukhtankar and Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner – in collaboration with a University of Oxford researcher and law enforcement leaders in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh – recently was honored by the Financial Times with a Responsible Business Education Award in the academic research category. The award recognizes the best academic research with a societal impact that has influenced policy or practice.

Published in the July 7, 2022 issue of Science, the "Policing in Patriarchy" study offers a possible avenue to improving investigative responses to gender-based crimes and to making victims more comfortable reporting them. The two-year study, in partnership with the Madhya Pradesh Police, detailed how the establishment of specialized help desks for women in local police stations led to the increased registration of cases of gender-based violence, especially when those help desks were staffed by female officers. 

The findings from the largest randomized controlled trial of police reform measures to date suggest that deliberate measures designed to make police officers more responsive to women’s security needs, and the presence of female officers in visible positions of authority, can be effective in making the police more accountable to women and in increasing women’s access to the justice system. The study found that police registration of domestic violence and other crimes against women increased significantly in stations with the help desks compared with those without. Those stations with women's help desks (WHDs) registered 14 per cent more “first information reports”, which led to criminal proceedings, as well as a staggering 1,000 percent more domestic incident reports, which can initiate civil proceedings.

“As in many parts of the world, and particularly in India, these types of cases simply go unreported,” said Sukhtankar, an associate professor of economics in UVA’s College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and co-director of the University’s Democracy Initiative’s Corruption Lab on Ethics, Accountability and the Rule of Law. “And the essential first step is registration of cases. Previous estimates suggest that anywhere from 95 to 99% of cases are not reported, and even fewer are registered.

“The judicial system in India is hugely backlogged and problematic and has a lot of issues, but just the fact that thousands more women are able to even access the justice system because of this intervention is a huge deal,” Sukhtankar continued. “Everybody who works on these topics in India knows sort of how hard it is to move the needle on this.”

Judges for this year's Responsible Business Education Awards praised the research for “tackling a hugely important topic in a very data-driven and scientific way, but with attention to cultural norms and contexts” and for prompting new police training modules on gender. Standard operating procedures for women’s cases are now included in training for recruits and refresher courses for existing staff. In partnership with the MIT Poverty Action Lab, Sukhtankar and his colleagues have helped create a center for action-based research, known as the Parimal Lab, based within the Madhya Pradesh police department. Twenty police officers have since gained certification as gender-based trainers.

 

Study: Vaccinated people had lower risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes

Findings published in Lancet Infectious Diseases

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CLEVELAND CLINIC

Study: Vaccinated people had lower risk of severe outcomesAmong people who had COVID-19, those who previously received the latest vaccine had a lower risk of having a severe outcome than those who had not, according to new Cleveland Clinic research published in Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Coupled with antiviral treatments such as nirmatrelvir and molnupiravir, updated versions of Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Novavax COVID-19 vaccines significantly lowered the likelihood of hospitalization and death from currently circulating COVID-19 variants.

The study included more than 27,000 patients age 12 and older who tested positive for COVID-19 between September and December 2023. The researchers found that the updated vaccines and antiviral drugs reduced the risk of severe COVID-19 by 31% and 42% respectively, particularly in older individuals and those who are immunocompromised. Furthermore, the study observed consistent efficacy across various subvariants of SARS-CoV-2.

 

Although the research had some limitations, the results underscore the potential significance of XBB.1.5 vaccines and antivirals treatments as vital tools in combating the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

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JOURNAL

The Lancet Infectious Diseases

DOI

10.1016/S1473-3099(24)00150-6 

ARTICLE TITLE

Effectiveness of XBB.1.5 vaccines and antiviral drugs against severe outcomes of omicron infection in the USA

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

4-Mar-2024

 

Researchers evaluate accuracy of online health news using easily accessible AI

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

DURHAM, N.H.—It can be challenging to gauge the quality of online news—questioning if it is real or if it is fake. When it comes to health news and press releases about medical treatments and procedures the issue can be even more complex, especially if the story is not complete and still doesn’t necessarily fall into the category of fake news. To help identify the stories with inflated claims, inaccuracies and possible associated risks, researchers at the University of New Hampshire developed a new machine learning model, an application of artificial intelligence, that news services, like social media outlets, could easily use to better screen medical news stories for accuracy.

“The way most people think about fake news is something that's completely fabricated, but, especially in healthcare, it doesn't need to be fake. It could be that maybe they're not mentioning something,” said Ermira Zifla, assistant professors of decision sciences at UNH’s Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics. “In the study, we’re not making claims about the intent of the news organizations that put these out. But if things are left out, there should be a way to look at that.” 

Zifla and study co-author Burcu Eke Rubini, assistant professors of decision sciences, found in their research, published in Decision Support Systems, that since most people don’t have the medical expertise to understand the complexities of the news, the machine learning models they developed outperformed the evaluations of laypeople in assessing the quality of health stories. They used data from Health News Review that included news stories and press releases on new healthcare treatments published in various outlets from 2013 to 2018. The articles had already been evaluated by a panel of healthcare experts—medical doctors, healthcare journalists and clinical professors—using ten different evaluation criteria the experts had developed. The criteria included cost and benefits of the treatment or test, any possible harm, the quality of arguments, the novelty and availability of the procedure and the independence of the sources. The researchers then developed an algorithm based on the same expert criteria, and trained the machine models to classify each aspect of the  news story, matching that criteria as "satisfactory" or "not satisfactory".

The model's performance was then compared against layperson evaluations obtained through a separate survey where participants rated the same articles as "satisfactory" or "not satisfactory" based on the same criteria. The survey revealed an "optimism bias," with most of the 254 participants rating articles as satisfactory, markedly different from the model's more critical assessments.

Researchers stress that they are by no means looking to replace expert opinion but are hoping to start a conversation about evaluating news based on multiple criteria and offering an easily accessible and low-cost alternative via open-source software to better evaluate health news.

The University of New Hampshire inspires innovation and transforms lives in our state, nation and world. More than 16,000 students from 49 states and 82 countries engage with an award-winning faculty in top-ranked programs in business, engineering, law, health and human services, liberal arts and the sciences across more than 200 programs of study. A Carnegie Classification R1 institution, UNH partners with NASA, NOAA, NSF, and NIH, and received over $210 million in competitive external funding in FY23 to further explore and define the frontiers of land, sea and space.

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JOURNAL

Decision Support Systems

ARTICLE TITLE

Multi-criteria evaluation of health news stories

AI can speed design of health software

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NYU LANGONE HEALTH / NYU GROSSMAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Artificial intelligence helped clinicians to accelerate the design of diabetes prevention software, a new study finds.

Publishing online March 6 in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, the study examined the capabilities of a form of artificial intelligence (AI) called generative AI or GenAI, which predicts likely options for the next word in any sentence based on how billions of people used words in context on the internet. A side effect of this next-word prediction is that the generative AI “chatbots” like chatGPT can generate replies to questions in realistic language, and produce clear summaries of complex texts.

Led by researchers at NYU Langone Health, the current paper explores the application of ChatGPT to the design of a software program that uses text messages to counter diabetes by encouraging patients to eat healthier and get exercise. The team tested whether AI-enabled interchanges between doctors and software engineers could hasten the development of such a personalized automatic messaging system (PAMS).

In the current study, eleven evaluators in fields ranging from medicine to computer science successfully used ChatGPT to produce a version of the diabetes tool over 40 hours, where an original, non-AI-enabled effort had required more than 200 programmer hours.

“We found that ChatGPT improves communications between technical and non-technical team members to hasten the design of computational solutions to medical problems,” says study corresponding author Danissa Rodriguez, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone, and member of its Healthcare Innovation Bridging Research, Informatics and Design (HiBRID) Lab. “The chatbot drove rapid progress throughout the software development life cycle, from capturing original ideas, to deciding which features to include, to generating the computer code. If this proves to be effective at scale it could revolutionize healthcare software design.”

AI as Translator

Generative AI tools are sensitive, say the study authors, and asking a question of the tool in two subtly different ways may yield divergent answers. The skill required to frame the questions asked of chatbots in a way that elicits the desired response, called prompt engineering, combines intuition and experimentation. Physicians and nurses, with their understanding of nuanced medical contexts, are well positioned to engineer strategic prompts that improve communications with engineers, and without learning to write computer code. 

These design efforts, however, where care providers, the would-be users of a new software, seek to advise engineers about what it must include can be compromised by attempts to converse using “different” technical languages. In the current study, the clinical members of the team were able to type their ideas in plain English, enter them into chatGPT, and ask the tool to convert their input into the kind of language required to guide coding work by the team’s software engineers. AI could take software design only so far before human software developers were needed for final code generation, but the overall process was greatly accelerated, say the authors. 

“Our study found that chatGPT can democratize the design of healthcare software by enabling doctors and nurses to drive its creation,” says senior study author Devin Mann, MD, director of the HiBRID Lab, and strategic director of Digital Health Innovation within NYU Langone Medical Center Information Technology (MCIT). “GenAI-assisted development promises to deliver computational tools that are usable, reliable, and in-line with the highest coding standards.”

Along with Rodriguez and Mann, study authors from the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone were Katharine Lawrence, MD, Beatrix Brandfield-Harvey, Lynn Xu, Sumaiya Tasneem, and Defne Levine. Javier Gonzalez, technical lead in the HIBRID Lab, was also a study author. This work was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grant 1R18DK118545-01A1.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Medical Internet Research

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Leveraging Generative AI Tools to Support the Development of Digital Solutions in Health Care Research: Case Study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Mar-2024

 

Global warming is affecting bats’ hibernation

Adapting to milder and shorter winters

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

 

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THE STUDY LED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA REVEALS HOW BATS ARE ADAPTING TO A WARMER CLIMATE AND MILDER TEMPERATURES WITH CHANGES IN THE LENGTH OF THEIR HIBERNATION, THE BODY CONDITIONS AND THEIR MIGRATION PATERNS.

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CREDIT: MARC LÓPEZ-ROIG, UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

Global change is altering the physiology of the hibernation and behaviour of bats, according to a study led by the University of Barcelona, carried out for twenty years. Given the milder winters we are having, bats are accumulating less fat reserves in autumn, they shorten their hibernation periods and they leave their winter shelter sooner. These changes could alter the migration pattern of bats and the phenology of their seasonal displacements. The study has been conducted on the largest colony of bats in Catalonia, in the Natural Park of Sant Llorenç del Munt i l’Obac (Spain). It is formed by 17,000 common bent-wing bats (Miniopterus schreibersii), a migratory species that lives in big colonies, especially in winter.

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, is signed by the experts Marc López-Roig and Jordi Serra-Cobo, from the Universtiy of Barcelona’s Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio), and Eduard Piera, from the Government of Catalonia.

Adapting to milder and shorter winters

It seems bats are adapting to a warmer climate, with milder and shorter winters. In temperate latitudes, bats accumulate large amounts of fat reserves during autumn to face the hibernation period, which usually runs from mid-December to late-February.

“The fat reserves they accumulate should be large enough to survive the whole winter without eating. However, due to shorter winters and higher temperatures, bats are not fattening up in autumn as they used to do years ago, because they do not need that much fat to get through the winter”, notes Professor Jordi Serra-Cobo, from the UB’s Department of Evolutionary, Ecology and Environmental Sciences.

These changes in the body mass are clear in both sexes, although female bats show a lower body condition than males, both at the beginning and at the end of hibernation and during the activity period (March). “This fact could have an effect on the reproduction of the species, since a poor body condition in females could negatively affect gestation and lactation. However, in our latitudes, female bats have enough time between the end of hibernation and the beginning of reproduction to recover their weight and have an optimal body condition for hibernation”, says Marc López-Roig.

Hibernating in warmer caves

Global change is also affecting the bats’ arrangement in their winter shelter. “The colony of bats was usually located in the deeper chamber —continues the expert —, located sixty-five meters deep, with a relatively constant temperature — around 7ºC — during the months of December and January”.

“The study states that the hibernation chamber takes longer to cool down compared to previous years. This delay affects bat hibernation because they do not find the optimal temperatures to hibernate until late January or early February. Therefore, these animals look for colder spaces near the entrance of their winter shelter and are exposed to a higher risk of predation (for instance, by genets)”, concludes Marc López-Roig (UB-IRBio).

Changing migration routes

With a shorter hibernation, bats start their activity earlier (compared to other years): they start their migration route and they reach their spring destination sooner. If there is any cold wave once the spring arrives, bats may not be ready to face low-temperature periods. These changes could have consequences in the conservation and management of the species. “The migratory routes and the seasonal movements of bats are well-documented in Catalonia. Recently, many new places in these routes have been found, but other important shelters have been lost or altered”, notes Serra-Cobo.

For instance, the increase in temperatures prevented bats from hibernating in the provinces of Tarragona. The loss of this shelter as a hibernation place altered the migration of this species and it also altered some migration routes in the south of Catalonia.

How will it affect pest control in the environment?

Global change could also alter the ecological function of chiropterans, which are decisive for the pest control of insects and disease-vector species in the environment. How might these changes affect their preys’ life cycle?

“Everything indicates that the phenology of certain insect species has also advanced with the global warming. This would coincide with the end of bat hibernation, so the impact of a shorter hibernation would be lower if these two situations were synchronized”, note the authors of the study.

All chiropteran species could be affected by the climate change, but the magnitude of the impact could be very different among groups of bats with different biogeographical patterns. “Mediterranean species, adapted to climate conditions with higher temperatures, may be less vulnerable to climate warming compared to species from northern or boreal latitudes,” says the team.
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The expert Marc López-Roig during field work.

Professor Jordi Serra-Cobo is an expert in ecoepidemiological studies.

CREDIT

UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-024-52459-9 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Thinner bats to face hibernation as response to climate warming