Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The odorsphere: the environment for transmission of chemical signals
- 2 Properties of vertebrate semiochemicals
- 3 Odor production and release
- 4 Chemical cues in orientation and navigation
- 5 Chemoreception
- 6 Signaling pheromones I: discrimination and recognition
- 7 Signaling pheromones II: sex and alarm pheromones and evolutionary considerations
- 8 Intraspecific signals: priming pheromones
- 9 Development of intra- and interspecific chemical communication
- 10 Allomones I: chemical defense by animals
- 11 Allomones II: plant chemical defenses against herbivores
- 12 Kairomones and synomones
- 13 Practical applications of semiochemicals
- Glosssary
- References
- Index
6 - Signaling pheromones I: discrimination and recognition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The odorsphere: the environment for transmission of chemical signals
- 2 Properties of vertebrate semiochemicals
- 3 Odor production and release
- 4 Chemical cues in orientation and navigation
- 5 Chemoreception
- 6 Signaling pheromones I: discrimination and recognition
- 7 Signaling pheromones II: sex and alarm pheromones and evolutionary considerations
- 8 Intraspecific signals: priming pheromones
- 9 Development of intra- and interspecific chemical communication
- 10 Allomones I: chemical defense by animals
- 11 Allomones II: plant chemical defenses against herbivores
- 12 Kairomones and synomones
- 13 Practical applications of semiochemicals
- Glosssary
- References
- Index
Summary
My dear friend, the last time you were so good as to come and see me – for nobody comes any more to see the wretched invalid I am – I was obliged to take the chair you sat in and keep it out in the courtyard for three days: it was impregnated with scent.
marcel proust, according to Léon Pierre-Quint, 1925Optimus odor in corpore est nullus [The best body odor is none].
seneca, Epistulae ad Lucilium, Epis CVIII, 16.Signaling pheromones are animal-produced, interindividual chemicals that modulate behavior in conspecifics. Like visual and auditory signals, they have comparatively rapid effects: exchange of signals takes seconds or minutes. (Priming pheromones [Ch. 8], by comparison, trigger slower endocrine or developmental processes.) The pheromone concept, originally based on insects (Karlson and üscher, 1959), has been debated for vertebrates, notably mammals (e.g. Beauchamp et al., 1976; Johnston, 2001). Often it is better to use the term “body odors” to avoid particular assumptions. Now the term pheromones is widely used for vertebrates, without any particularly narrow definition implied.
A pheromone is functionally defined as a conspecific compound(s) that affects a receiver. Sources such as urine or gland secretions typically contain many compounds of which only some are pheromonally active. So in most cases, a pheromone is more than a single compound and less than a secretion (“scent”), it is rather a group of active compounds in a secretion or excretion that supply information to, or change behavior in, another conspecific.
The following text discusses first the ability of animals to distinguish and recognize other animals by odors without necessarily exhibiting specific behaviors and then the behaviors that are modulated by status signals.
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- Information
- Chemical Ecology of Vertebrates , pp. 124 - 170Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006