- Professor, Biology, College of Arts and Sciences
Evolution and Neurobiology of Communication
Communication is an essential part of sociality, and an animal's vocal communications provide a window into their cognitive capabilities, motivations, and behavioral ecology. Communication is also a important model of sensorimotor neurobiology because vocalizations are the motor output of a sophisticated suite of brain pathways that integrate across multiple sensory modalities and time scales. Vocal communication systems are highly diverse because they have been shaped by intense natural and sexual selection. Studying the evolution of communication networks in the brain provides important insight into how environment and ecology molded the social brain.
Our lab studies bats because of their biosonar capabilities and their unusually broad repertoire of communication calls and songs.
Echolocation provides an exciting model system for exploring how multiple brain pathways interact to control behavior on a millisecond time scale. Our neural studies investigate the neurocircuits that guide delicate changes in sonar pulse acoustics. Our behavioral studies of bats echolocating in groups has shed light on how they coordinate their sonar systems to minimize interference with one another. This research has direct relevance to man-made sonar and wireless communications systems.
Singing by bats offers exiting new opportunities to young investigators to explore how mammals and birds converged upon a similar behavior via different neural mechanisms. Identifying and characterizing the functional neurocircuitry of the bat's song production network is a major component of our research.
- University of California Los Angeles - (Los Angeles, California, United States), Postdoctoral Training 2004
- Ph.D. in Physiology, University of California Los Angeles - (Los Angeles, California, United States) 1998
- M.S. in Zoology, University of Maine - (Orono, Maine, United States) 1992
- B.S. in Biology, Occidental College - (Los Angeles, California, United States) 1989
Academic Articles39
- Macias, S., Bakshi, K., & Smotherman, M. (2022). Faster Repetition Rate Sharpens the Cortical Representation of Echo Streams in Echolocating Bats.. eNeuro. 9(1), eneuro.0410-eneu21.2021.
- Macias, S., Bakshi, K., Troyer, T., & Smotherman, M. (2022). The prefrontal cortex of the Mexican free-tailed bat is more selective to communication calls than primary auditory cortex.. J Neurophysiol. 128(3), 634-648.
- Bakshi, K., Macias, S., Troyer, T., & Smotherman, M. (2022). Topographical distribution of spectrotemporal receptive field properties in the bat primary auditory cortex. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 151(4), a146-a146.
- Smarsh, G. C., Long, A. M., & Smotherman, M. (2022). Singing strategies are linked to perch use on foraging territories in heart-nosed bats.. Ecol Evol. 12(2), e8519.
- Smotherman, M., Croft, T., & Macias, S. (2022). Biosonar discrimination of fine surface textures by echolocating free-tailed bats. FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 10, 969350.
Chapters2
- Smotherman, M. S., Simmons, A. M., & Simmons, J. A. (2021). How Noise Affects Bats and What It Reveals About Their Biosonar Systems. 50 YEARS OF BAT RESEARCH. 61-76. Springer Nature.
- Smotherman, M., Bohn, K., Davis, K., Rogers, K., & Schwartz, C. P. (2016). Daily and Seasonal Patterns of Singing by the Mexican Free-Tailed Bat, Tadarida brasiliensis. Sociality in Bats. 197-209. Springer Nature.
Conference Papers4
- Rummel, A. D., Faure, P. A., Smotherman, M. S., Swartz, S. M., & Marsh, R. L. (2020). Is Reduced Thermal Sensitivity in Distal Wing Muscles a Functional Adaptation to Bats' Unique Wing Morphology?. 60, E202-E202.
- Smarsh, G. C., & Smotherman, M. (2015). Singing away from home: Songs are used on foraging territories in the African megadermatid bat, Cardioderma cor.. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 5th Pacific Rim Underwater Acoustics Conference. 25(1), 010002.
- Fernandez-Lima, F. A., Debord, J. D., Schweikert, E. A., Della-Negra, S., Kellersberger, K. A., & Smotherman, M. (2013). Surface characterization of biological nanodomains using NP-ToF-SIMS.. Surf Interface Anal. 45(1), 294-297.
- Smotherman, M. (2002). Acetylcholine mediates excitatory input to chromatophore motoneurons in the squid, Loligo pealeii.. 203(2), 231-232.
Repository Documents / Preprints1
- Smarsh, G., Long, A., & Smotherman, M. (2021). Singing strategies are linked to perch use on foraging territories in heart-nosed bats.
Principal Investigator1
- Networking Strategies used by Bats to Improve Social Sonar awarded by National Science Foundation 2014 - 2019
- BICH491 Hnr-research Instructor
- BICH491 Research Instructor
- BIOL291 Research Instructor
- BIOL434 Reg & Behav Neuroscience Instructor
- BIOL435 Reg & Behav Neurosc Lab Instructor