Abstract
Olfactory communication is highly important for nocturnal mammals, especially for solitary foragers, but knowledge is still limited for nocturnal primates. Mouse lemurs (Microcebus spp.) are nocturnal solitary foragers with a dispersed lifestyle and frequently use chemo-sensory signalling behaviour for governing social interactions. Different mouse lemur species can co-occur in a given forest but it is unknown whether olfaction is involved in species recognition. We first screened 24 captive mouse lemurs (9 M. murinus, 15 M. lehilahytsara) for their olfactory learning potential in an experimental arena and then tested the species discrimination ability with urine odour in an operant conditioning paradigm in four individuals. The majority of the screened animals (75%) did not pass the screening criteria within a 2-week test period. However, all four final test animals, two M. murinus and two M. lehilahytsara, were successfully trained in a 5-step-conditioning process to reliably discriminate conspecific from heterospecific urine odour (requiring an overall median of 293 trials). Findings complement previous studies on the role of acoustic signalling and suggest that olfaction may be an important additional mechanism for species discrimination.
Highlights
The olfactory sense is of high significance for many mammals
A recent study on the protein content of mouse lemur urine revealed a new urinary protein, WFDC12, that differs between Microcebus murinus and M. lehilahytsara by one amino acid[44]
It is still not known if and how this protein is used in the olfactory communication of mouse lemurs and why it was only found in very high quantities in the urine of some, but not all males and not in female urine samples[44]
Summary
The olfactory sense is of high significance for many mammals. It is used to recognize specific odours to avoid predators[1,2], locate suitable food sources[3,4,5,6,7], recognize kin[8,9,10], or to find potential mates[9,11] and avoid inbreeding[12,13,14,15]. A recent study on the protein content of mouse lemur urine revealed a new urinary protein, WFDC12, that differs between Microcebus murinus and M. lehilahytsara by one amino acid[44] It is still not known if and how this protein is used in the olfactory communication of mouse lemurs and why it was only found in very high quantities in the urine of some, but not all males and not in female urine samples[44]. The nocturnal mouse lemurs (Microcebus spp.) with currently 24 described species inhabit the forest habitats of Madagascar, as reviewed in Zimmermann and Radespiel[45] They are arboreal, solitary foragers and live in dispersed but individualized neighbourhoods[46]. Vocalizations do contain individual signatures[55,56]
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