Female voles discriminate males' over-marks and prefer top-scent males
Female voles discriminate males' over-marks and prefer top-scent males
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DOI：
10.1006/anbe.1997.0471
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发表时间：
1997-09-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Ferkin, MH
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Johnston, RE;Sorokin, ES;Ferkin, MH
气味过度标记是许多哺乳动物物种中常见的竞争性广告形式。最近对金黄地鼠的观察表明，个体有专门的机制来解释和回应这种超标。在这项研究中，我们研究了草甸田鼠是否具有类似的能力。雌性田鼠首先接触到两只雄性田鼠的肛门气味痕迹，然后在Y形迷宫中测试它们对这两只雄性田鼠全身气味的偏好。实验在暴露阶段使用了各种不同的气味标记，但所有的实验都产生了一致的结果。如果两只雄性的气味标记重叠，雌性更喜欢气味在上面的雄性的全身气味；如果两种气味标记不重叠，雌性没有表现出偏好。与新奇的雄性相比，雌性更喜欢熟悉雄性的气味，比起新奇的雄性，雌性更喜欢上气味和下气味的雄性。结果表明，雌性田鼠可以分辨出哪个个体的气味在超标的位置上，而且它们更喜欢气味最好的雄性田鼠，尽管它们知道两只雄性田鼠的气味都出现在暴露阶段。我们认为这些气味偏好反映了配偶偏好，并讨论了为什么雌性可能更喜欢气味最好的雄性的可能原因。(C)1997年动物行为研究协会。
Scent over-marking is a common form of competitive advertisement among many species of mammals. Recent observations in golden hamsters, Mesocricetus auratus, have suggested that individuals have specialized mechanisms for interpretation of and response to such over-marks. In this study, we examined whether meadow voles, Microtus pennsylvanicus, have similar abilities. Female voles were first exposed to anogenital scent marks of two males and were then tested in a Y-maze for their preferences for whole-body odours of these two males. Experiments were run using a variety of configurations of scent marks during the exposure phase, but all experiments yielded consistent results. If the scent marks of the two males overlapped, females later preferred the whole-body odours of the male whose scent was on top; if the two scent marks did not overlap, females showed no preference. Females also preferred odours of familiar males over novel males, and preferred both top-scent and bottom-scent males over novel males. The results suggest that female voles can tell which individual's scent is on top in an over-mark and that they prefer this top-scent male, even though they know that both males' scents were present during the exposure phase. We suggest that these odour preferences reflect mate preferences and discuss possible reasons why females might prefer top-scent males. (C) 1997 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.