Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Animals in a chemical world
- 2 Discovering pheromones
- 3 Sex pheromones: finding and choosing mates
- 4 Coming together and keeping apart: aggregation and host-marking pheromones
- 5 Scent marking and territorial behaviour
- 6 Pheromones and social organisation
- 7 Pheromones and recruitment communication
- 8 Fight or flight: alarm pheromones
- 9 Perception and action of pheromones: from receptor molecules to brains and behaviour
- 10 Finding the source: pheromones and orientation behaviour
- 11 Breaking the code: illicit signallers and receivers of semiochemical signals
- 12 Using pheromones: applications
- 13 On the scent of human attraction: human pheromones?
- Appendix A1 An introduction to pheromones for non-chemists
- Appendix A2 Isomers and pheromones
- Appendix A3 Further reading on pheromone chemical structure
- References
- List of credits
- Index
11 - Breaking the code: illicit signallers and receivers of semiochemical signals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Animals in a chemical world
- 2 Discovering pheromones
- 3 Sex pheromones: finding and choosing mates
- 4 Coming together and keeping apart: aggregation and host-marking pheromones
- 5 Scent marking and territorial behaviour
- 6 Pheromones and social organisation
- 7 Pheromones and recruitment communication
- 8 Fight or flight: alarm pheromones
- 9 Perception and action of pheromones: from receptor molecules to brains and behaviour
- 10 Finding the source: pheromones and orientation behaviour
- 11 Breaking the code: illicit signallers and receivers of semiochemical signals
- 12 Using pheromones: applications
- 13 On the scent of human attraction: human pheromones?
- Appendix A1 An introduction to pheromones for non-chemists
- Appendix A2 Isomers and pheromones
- Appendix A3 Further reading on pheromone chemical structure
- References
- List of credits
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Potentially, any pheromone or chemical recognition system described in the other 12 chapters in this book could be exploited by other organisms, whether conspecifics or predators and parasites. Exploitation can take many forms, from eavesdropping on a pheromone signal, for example spiders (Habronestes bradleyi) attracted to fighting ants by ant alarm pheromone (Allan et al. 1996), to the active producion of chemicals that mimic those of a prey species, such as bolas spiders, which produce moth sex pheromones to lure male moths within striking distance. However, not all relationships involve exploitation: mutualistic relationships also involve chemical cues (see Table 11.1 for explanation of the terms used for odours in these different contexts).
Given the subtleties revealed in other chapters about chemical communication within species, we should expect that interspecific 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 interspecific relationships. Chemical detection and interaction of partners and enemies may turn out to be the rule rather than the exception.
The attraction of invertebrate predators such as parasitoid wasps or predatory mites by semiochemicals produced by plants under insect or mite attack has excited great interest. Excellent reviews of these ‘tri-trophic’ systems can be found in recent sources so are not covered here (Dicke & Sabelis 1992; Turlings et al. 1995; Pickett 1999).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Pheromones and Animal BehaviourCommunication by Smell and Taste, pp. 229 - 250Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003