Together with Associate Professors Lasse Jakobsen and Magnus Wahlberg from the University of Southern Denmark, Professor Madsen will lead innovative research into the fascinating world of echolocating predators like bats and toothed whales.

While predation is often considered a visual pursuit, these extraordinary animals rely on sound—not sight—to navigate and hunt, even in complete darkness. However, much remains to be understood about how they succeed, especially in an increasingly noisy world.

The center’s mission is to uncover how echolocators:

• Use sound to sense their environment and capture prey.
• Adapt their sensory systems to human-induced changes in their habitats.

To do this, the research will rely on two key steps:

1. Attaching small sound tags to wild echolocating animals to monitor their echolocation behavior and the echoes received from prey during hunts.
2. Developing manipulated acoustic environments around trained echolocating animals to simulate noisy scenarios.

By creating these acoustic virtual realities and closely observing the animals’ behavior, researchers can gain valuable insights into how sensory perception shapes behavior and how human activities influence their sensory capabilities and hunting success.

We’re excited to follow the progress of this ambitious endeavor and the knowledge it will bring to the field!

Read more at https://www.carlsbergfondet.dk/det-har-vi-stoettet/cf24-2176/