Scent marking within and between groups of wild banded mongooses
Scent marking within and between groups of wild banded mongooses
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1469-7998.2009.00646.x
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发表时间：
2010-01-01
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Cant, M. A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Jordan, N. R.;Mwanguhya, F.;Cant, M. A.
气味标记通常被描述为一种领土行为，气味标记可以阻止潜在的入侵者进入被占领的地区。同类型的邻居既存在繁殖威胁，也存在领土威胁，因此，确定哪种威胁（如果有的话）会影响气味标记行为是很困难的。Mungos mungo在繁殖对手（在群体内发现）和领土竞争对手（邻近群体）之间提供了罕见的明确区分，因为移民到社会群体的情况极为罕见，交配几乎只发生在群体内。这种情况提供了一个机会来评估领土防御和群体内配偶竞争在塑造气味标记行为中的相对重要性。我们将气味标记的详细行为观察、气味成分的化学分析和野外的辨别实验结合起来，发现很少有证据表明重叠区域的气味标记率较高，缺乏气味的群体特异性以及个体无法区分不同群体的气味。虽然气味可能在领土划分和防御中发挥一定作用，但这些结果表明，气味标记和气味标记模式也参与社会群体内的交流。
Scent marking is commonly described as a territorial behaviour, and scent marks might deter potential intruders from entering occupied areas. Conspecific neighbours present both a reproductive and a territorial threat, thus, determining which, if any, of these threats shapes scent-marking behaviour is difficult. Banded mongooses Mungos mungo provide a rare clear separation between reproductive rivals (found within groups) and territorial rivals (neighbouring groups), because immigration into social groups is extremely rare, and mating occurs almost exclusively within groups. This situation offers an opportunity to assess the relative importance of territorial defence and intra-group competition for mates in shaping scent-marking behaviour. We combined detailed behavioural observations of scent marking, chemical analyses of scent composition and discrimination experiments in the field, and found little evidence for higher rates of scent marking in overlapping areas, a lack of group specificity of scents and a failure of individuals to discriminate between the scents of different groups. Although scent may fulfill some role in territorial demarcation and defence, these results suggest that scent marks and scent-marking patterns are also involved in communicating within social groups.