A Symbiotic Approach to the Study of Animal Communication

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Animals contain billions of bacteria and most benefit the health of their animal hosts. Currently, the effects of symbiotic bacteria on the behavior of their animal hosts remain largely unexplored. Symbiotic bacteria potentially figure prominently in animal communication, especially among mammals. Many mammals communicate by scent-marking with products of specialized glands. These glands are highly conducive to bacterial proliferation, and it has been postulated that the volatile odorants the bacteria generate are used by their hosts in communication. This project uses current insights and tools of microbial ecology to elucidate the effects of symbiotic bacteria on the scent-marking system of the spotted hyena, a socially complex large carnivore found throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Scent discrimination experiments with hyenas in Kenya will illustrate the information content of hyenas' scent-marks. Chemical analyses will further illustrate the information content of their marks and also reveal how that information is chemically coded. Culture-independent molecular surveys of the same scent-marks will indicate whether variation in symbiotic bacterial communities underlies the coding of information in scent-marks. Lastly, contemporary culturing techniques will be used to isolate prominent members of scent gland bacterial communities, and to ascertain whether they produce the odorants that, as indicated by the chemical analyses, likely code information in scent-marks. This project will enhance our understanding of the potential roles of bacteria in mammalian chemical communication systems. The project will involve the training of undergraduates across disciplinary boundaries, integrating cutting-edge advances in molecular biology into animal behavior research. It will result in public access to over one million molecular sequences from an entirely novel symbiotic environment, and should stimulate multi-disciplinary partnerships to generate a central online database enabling rapid access to molecular sequences from symbiotic systems. This project should be transformative, opening up a rich new field of study and altering our perceptions of symbiotic bacteria and the behavior of their animal hosts.