Abstract
Chemical communication plays an important role in mammalian life history decisions. Animals send and receive information based on body odour secretions. Odour cues provide important social information on identity, kinship, sex, group membership or genetic quality. Recent findings show, that rodents alarm their conspecifics with danger-dependent body odours after encountering a predator. In this study, we aim to identify the chemistry of alarm pheromones (AP) in the bank vole, a common boreal rodent. Furthermore, the vole foraging efficiency under perceived fear was measured in a set of field experiments in large outdoor enclosures. During the analysis of bank vole odour by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, we identified that 1-octanol, 2-octanone, and one unknown compound as the most likely candidates to function as alarm signals. These compounds were independent of the vole’s sex. In a field experiment, voles were foraging less, i.e. they were more afraid in the AP odour foraging trays during the first day, as the odour was fresh, than in the second day. This verified the short lasting effect of volatile APs. Our results clarified the chemistry of alarming body odour compounds in mammals, and enhanced our understanding of the ecological role of AP and chemical communication in mammals.
Highlights
Predator–prey interactions are among the strongest drivers of evolution (Abrams 1986, 2000; Yoshida et al 2003)
We investigated how the presence of alarm pheromone, compared to predator odour and a control, shapes the foraging effort of voles over time
In Central Finland, where this work was conducted, bank voles breed three to five times per season, which lasts from May until September (Mappes et al 1995; Koivula et al 2003)
Summary
Predator–prey interactions are among the strongest drivers of evolution (Abrams 1986, 2000; Yoshida et al 2003). Cues of increased predation risk range from very reliable cues like sighting of a predator or its direct attack (Blumstein et al 2000; Van der Veen 2002), to more general and less accurate ones like signs or markings of predator. After perceiving increased predation risk, multiple mechanisms and adaptations by prey animals are possible, from simple immediate behavioural responses to long-term physiological or even intergenerational adaptations (Abrams 2000). Anti-predatory behaviours employed in prey range from simple avoidance of high-risk areas (Ferrero et al 2011; Clinchy et al 2013; Pérez-Gómez et al 2015) and freezing to decrease detectability (Wallace and Rosen 2000; Sundell and Ylönen 2004), over changes in vigilance and foraging (Brown 1999; Ylönen and Brown 2007; Embar et al 2011), to drastic changes in the reproductive behaviours (Ylönen and Ronkainen 1994; Sih 1994; Mappes and Ylönen 1997; Mönkkönen et al 2009; Haapakoski et al 2012, 2018; Sievert et al 2019).
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