Opportunistic evidence of the impact of bacterial infections on social integration in vampire bats

Opportunistic evidence of the impact of bacterial infections on social integration in vampire bats | bioRxiv Skip to main content Home About Submit ALERTS / RSS Search for this keyword Advanced Search New Results Opportunistic evidence of the impact of bacterial infections on social integration in vampire bats View ORCID Profile Imran Razik , View ORCID Profile Gerald G. Carter , Michael Abou-Elias , View ORCID Profile Sebastian Stockmaier doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.04.17.537180 Imran Razik 1 Department for the Ecology of Animal Societies, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior , Konstanz, Germany Find this author on Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for this author on this site ORCID record for Imran Razik Gerald G. Carter 2 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute , Balboa, Ancon, Panama , Republic of Panama 3 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ, USA 4 Howard Hughes Medical Institute , Chevy Chase, MD, USA Find this author on Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for this author on this site ORCID record for Gerald G. Carter Michael Abou-Elias 1 Department for the Ecology of Animal Societies, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior , Konstanz, Germany Find this author on Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for this author on this site Sebastian Stockmaier 2 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute , Balboa, Ancon, Panama , Republic of Panama 5 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee , Knoxville, TN, USA 6 Collaborative for Animal Behavior (CoLab), University of Tennessee , Knoxville, TN, USA Find this author on Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for this author on this site ORCID record for Sebastian Stockmaier For correspondence: sstockma{at}utk.edu Abstract Full Text Info/History Metrics Supplementary material Data/Code Preview PDF Abstract Social integration can affect an individual’s susceptibility to infectious disease. Conversely, infectious disease can reduce an individual’s social activity. Yet, it remains unclear to what extent short-term infections can inhibit social integration and the formation of new relationships. During a previous study on relationship formation, we captured 21 female common vampire bats ( Desmodus rotundus ) from different wild populations and housed them together in captivity. Upon introduction, we observed an unplanned outbreak of bacterial infections that caused cutaneous lesions. After treating infected bats with an antibiotic, five bats recovered, but four others suffered lasting injuries. Given that observations of how natural infections alter relationship formation are rare, we analyzed how allogrooming rates changed over time among familiar and new dyads consisting of the nine infected and 12 asymptomatic bats. We found that (1) infected bats demonstrated reduced activity and social behavior, (2) more severely infected bats gave and received less allogrooming than asymptomatic bats, (3) the effect of infection was larger for new dyads relative to familiar dyads, and (4) this effect decreased as infected bats recovered and new dyads became more familiar. These opportunistic observations were consistent with the hypothesis that short-term infections can impact the formation of new relationships. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Footnotes Minor revisions to main text and new inclusion of supplementary information. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22573018 Funder Information Declared Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, https://ror.org/035jbxr46 Animal Behavior Society, https://ror.org/031nh9x49 The Ohio State University, https://ror.org/00rs6vg23 Tinker Foundation, https://ror.org/01sv5w039 American Society of Mammalogists Smithsonian Institution U.S. National Science Foundation , IOS-2015928 Copyright The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license . Back to top Previous Next Posted March 25, 2026. Download PDF Supplementary Material Data/Code Email Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv. NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article. 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Carter , Michael Abou-Elias , Sebastian Stockmaier bioRxiv 2023.04.17.537180; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.04.17.537180 Citation Manager Formats BibTeX Bookends EasyBib EndNote (tagged) EndNote 8 (xml) Medlars Mendeley Papers RefWorks Tagged Ref Manager RIS Zotero Tweet Widget Facebook Like Google Plus One Subject Area Animal Behavior and Cognition Subject Areas All Articles Animal Behavior and Cognition (8003) Biochemistry (18709) Bioengineering (14841) Bioinformatics (44364) Biophysics (22561) Cancer Biology (19682) Cell Biology (26845) Clinical Trials (138) Developmental Biology (13943) Ecology (20970) Epidemiology (2067) Evolutionary Biology (25415) Genetics (16151) Genomics (23478) Immunology (18681) Microbiology (42421) Molecular Biology (18022) Neuroscience (93355) Paleontology (699) Pathology (2977) Pharmacology and Toxicology (5086) Physiology (8105) Plant Biology (15969) Scientific Communication and Education (2094) Synthetic Biology (4549) Systems Biology (10219) Zoology (2384)

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