| Although social animals enjoy the benefits of clustering,they are exposed to community stress,which can affect their physiology in many ways,such as altering their energy intake,metabolism,and gene expression.Aggressive calls are defined as calls emitted during aggressive conflicts between individuals of the same species over resources,such as territory,food,or mates,and vocalizations in different aggressive states indicate different levels of community pressure.A key question is whether aggressive calls produced in different aggressive states exert different physiological effects on animals..In this study,we studied the effects of long-term playback of two different syllable aggressive calls on food intake and gene expression in Asian particolored bats(Vespertilio sinensis).We ran a rigorous acoustic playback experiment to replay tonal and noisy syllable aggressive calls for bats with one white noise playback and one blank control.The bats’ food intake,body mass,and corticosterone concentrations were compared.The differences in gene expression in the kidney and brain tissues of bat groups were also explored.This study found that the playback of both aggressive calls resulted in a significant decrease in the feeding and body mass of the bats,and the bats in the tonal syllable aggressive call group showed a more significant decrease in body mass and feeding compared to those in the noisy syllable aggressive call group.In the experimental group,corticosterone levels increased after the aggressive call playback.Transcriptome results showed that several differential genes involved in energy and metabolism,such as LPL,AKR1 B,APOC3,and APOA1,were differentially expressed in the noise syllable aggressive call playback group;additionally,immune-and disease-related genes,such as CCL5,CD4,CD183,CCL8,CX3CR1,and CD261＿2,were differentially expressed in the tonal syllable aggressive call playback group of bats compared to the control and white noise groups.Our results suggest that the playback of two syllable aggressive calls differentially affects body mass,food intake,and gene expression in bats;that the playback of two syllable aggressive calls disrupts the immune system and increases the risk of disease in bats,based on differential gene expression;and that bats show more physiological responses to the playback of tonal syllable aggressive calls than to the playback of noisy syllable aggressive calls.Our research results reveal the physiological influence of community pressure on animals from many aspects,and community pressure will have a negative impact on the health of animals,which can provide some reference for the research of other social mammals.This discovery is of great significance for understanding the response of animals to the pressure caused by community conflict. |
