Collaborative Proposal: A New Model For Chemical Ecology: Integrating Chemistry, Genetics and Behavior to Understand the Role of Individual Scent in a Colonial Nesting Seabird.

个人气味在交流和个人识别中起着至关重要的作用。气味会受到对免疫功能至关重要的基因的影响，包括主要组织相容性复合体(MHC)的基因。这项研究将把化学生态学与现代法医科学技术结合起来，建立一种模式系统，研究鸟类社会互动的一个关键方面，但很少被研究。这种长寿的洞穴筑巢物种具有良好的嗅觉，使它们成为研究这一调查的理想模型。加拿大新斯科舍省的波蒂奇岛已经建立了广泛的实地研究地点，那里已有300多对繁殖对进行了MHC 2B类基因的基因分型。其目的是利用为人类气味识别开发的最先进的化学技术来表征这些基因分型鸟类的个体气味特征。具体的研究目标是a)测试个体鸟类是否产生与其MHC基因相关的气味特征，b)确定鸟类是否使用与MHC相关的气味标记来标记它们的家穴，以及c)确定个体鸟类的气味是个体质量、健康和体能的指标，还是在配偶选择决策中发挥作用。显示任何鸟类在配偶选择决策中使用MHC相关气味将代表着生物学家对鸟类配偶选择决策方式的范式转变，并将在广泛的物种中提供与鸟类免疫学和健康相关的见解。同样重要的是，许多海燕和信天翁物种正面临灭绝，了解推动配偶选择和种群人口统计的因素将对濒危物种的综合管理计划做出宝贵贡献。已发表的表型/化学或遗传数据将存放在仙女木库(http://datadryad.org/))或提交给基因库(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/)，)，并存放在梅里特数据仓库(http://www.dataone.org/software-tools/merritt-repository-service).

Personal odors can play an essential role in communication and individual recognition. Scents make be influenced by genes that are critical for immune function, including genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). This study will marry chemical ecology with modern forensic science techniques establishing the Leach's storm-petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa), as a model system studying what appears to be a critical but little studied aspect of social interactions in birds.This long-lived, burrow-nesting species has an excellent sense of smell, making them an ideal model for this investigation. Extensive field study sites have already been established on Bon Portage Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, where over 300 breeding pairs have been genotyped for the MHC class 2B gene. The aim is to characterize the individual odor profiles of these genotyped birds using state-of-the-art chemical techniques developed for human scent discrimination. Specific research objectives are a) to test whether individual birds produce odor signatures related to their MHC-genotype, b) to determine if birds use MHC-related scent marks to label their home burrows, and c) to determine whether the scent of an individual bird is an indicator of individual quality, health and fitness, or plays a role in mate choice decisions. Showing that any species of bird uses MHC-related odors in mate choice decisions would represent a paradigm shift in how biologists think about mate choice decisions in birds, and will provide insights relevant to avian immunology and health in a wide-ranging species. Just as importantly, many species of petrels and albatrosses are facing extinction, and understanding the factors driving mate choice and colony demographics will make a valuable contribution to comprehensive management plans for endangered species. Published phenotypic/chemical or genetic data will be deposited in the Dryad Repository (http://datadryad.org/) or submitted to Genbank (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/), and deposited in Merritt Data Repository (http://www.dataone.org/software-tools/merritt-repository-service).