Species, Gender, and Identity: Cracking Petrels' Sociochemical Code
Species, Gender, and Identity: Cracking Petrels' Sociochemical Code
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DOI：
10.1093/chemse/bjq021
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发表时间：
2010-05-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Bonadonna, Francesco
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Mardon, Jerome;Saunders, Sandra M.;Bonadonna, Francesco
鸟类的化学信号仍然相对未被探索，但其在鸟类社会行为中的潜在重要性正在被认识到。Procellariiform海鸟提供了特别合适的模式，为调查这些问题，因为他们拥有发达的嗅觉系统和无与伦比的相关能力。我们在这里提出的结果，从2海燕物种，南极朊病毒和蓝海燕的尾臀腺分泌物（鸟类外源性化学物质的主要来源）的详细的化学检查。使用气相色谱-质谱技术和最近开发的多变量工具，我们表明，分泌物包含关键的社会生态信息，如物种，性别和个人身份。重要的是，这些化学信号与鸟类在野外表现出的一些嗅觉行为相关。发现与社会信息相关的分子基本上是大的不饱和化合物，这表明这些可能是实际空气传播信号的前体或相关性。虽然种特异性化学信号可能参与种间竞争的繁殖地，性特异性化学信号的作用仍然不清楚。个别特定信号的存在（即，这些鸟类中的化学特征）对个体识别和基于遗传的配偶选择等过程具有重要意义，这些过程已经被怀疑是这一群体的特征。我们的研究结果为鸟类化学通讯的研究开辟了有前途的途径。
Avian chemosignaling remains relatively unexplored, but its potential importance in birds' social behaviors is becoming recognized. Procellariiform seabirds provide particularly appropriate models for investigating these topics as they possess a well-developed olfactory system and unequalled associated capabilities. We present here results from a detailed chemical examination of the uropygial secretions (the main source of avian exogenous chemicals) from 2 petrel species, Antarctic prions and blue petrels. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry techniques and recently developed multivariate tools, we demonstrate that the secretions contain critical socioecological information such as species, gender, and individual identity. Importantly, these chemosignals correlate with some of the birds' olfactory behaviors demonstrated in the field. The molecules found to be associated with social information were essentially large unsaturated compounds, suggesting that these may be precursors of, or correlates to the actual airborne signals. Although the species-specific chemosignal may be involved in interspecific competition at the breeding grounds, the role of the sexually specific chemosignal remains unclear. The existence of individually specific signals (i.e., chemical signatures) in these birds has important implications for processes such as individual recognition and genetically based mate choice already suspected for this group. Our results open promising avenues of research for the study of avian chemical communication.