Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface to the second edition
- Acknowledgments
- List of SI prefixes
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Animals in a chemical world
- 2 Methods for identifying and studying semiochemicals
- 3 Pheromones, chemical cues, and sexual selection
- 4 Coming together and keeping apart: aggregation pheromones and host-marking pheromones
- 5 Territorial behavior and semiochemicals
- 6 Semiochemicals and social organization
- 7 Pheromones and recruitment communication
- 8 Fight or flight: alarm pheromones and cues
- 9 Perception and response to chemical communication: from chemosensory receptors to brains, behavior, and development
- 10 Finding the source: pheromones and orientation behavior
- 11 Breaking the code: illicit signalers and receivers of semiochemicals
- 12 Using semiochemicals: applications of pheromones
- 13 On the scent of human attraction: human pheromones?
- Appendix An introduction to chemical terms for non-chemists
- References
- List of Credits
- Index
11 - Breaking the code: illicit signalers and receivers of semiochemicals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface to the second edition
- Acknowledgments
- List of SI prefixes
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Animals in a chemical world
- 2 Methods for identifying and studying semiochemicals
- 3 Pheromones, chemical cues, and sexual selection
- 4 Coming together and keeping apart: aggregation pheromones and host-marking pheromones
- 5 Territorial behavior and semiochemicals
- 6 Semiochemicals and social organization
- 7 Pheromones and recruitment communication
- 8 Fight or flight: alarm pheromones and cues
- 9 Perception and response to chemical communication: from chemosensory receptors to brains, behavior, and development
- 10 Finding the source: pheromones and orientation behavior
- 11 Breaking the code: illicit signalers and receivers of semiochemicals
- 12 Using semiochemicals: applications of pheromones
- 13 On the scent of human attraction: human pheromones?
- Appendix An introduction to chemical terms for non-chemists
- References
- List of Credits
- Index
Summary
Any pheromone or chemical recognition system described in the other 12 chapters in this book could potentially be exploited by other organisms, whether conspecifics or predators and parasites. Exploitation can take many forms, from parasitoid flies eavesdropping the alarm pheromones of fighting ants (Mathis & Philpott 2012), to the production of insect sex pheromone molecules by orchids to deceive male bees and wasps into becoming inadvertent pollinators (Gaskett 2011). However, not all relationships involve exploitation: mutualistic relationships, such as those between sea anemones and anemonefish, can also involve chemical cues. Inter-specific semiochemicals (allelochemicals) in mutualistic relationships are called synomones; those used in active deception, allomones, and when eavesdropped, kairomones (see Table 11.1 and Table 1.1 for more details).
Given the subtleties revealed in other chapters about chemical communication within species, we should expect that inter-specific interactions will be no less extraordinary. Many of the examples are of insect interactions, particularly those between ants and their guests and parasites. This is largely because we know most about chemical communication in insects. Investigation of the chemical ecology of other animals in similar detail is likely to reveal a near ubiquitous role of chemical cues in other inter-specific relationships. Chemical detection and interaction of inter-specific partners and enemies may turn out to be the rule rather than the exception.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Pheromones and Animal BehaviorChemical Signals and Signatures, pp. 244 - 259Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
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