Abstract
We investigated the regulation of chemical signals of house mice living in seminatural social conditions. We found that male mice more than doubled the excretion of major urinary proteins (MUPs) after they acquired a territory and become socially dominant. MUPs bind and stabilize the release of volatile pheromone ligands, and some MUPs exhibit pheromonal properties themselves. We conducted olfactory assays and found that female mice were more attracted to the scent of dominant than subordinate males when they were in estrus. Yet, when male status was controlled, females were not attracted to urine with high MUP concentration, despite being comparable to levels of dominant males. To determine which compounds influence female attraction, we conducted additional analyses and found that dominant males differentially upregulated the excretion of particular MUPs, including the pheromone MUP20 (darcin), and a volatile pheromone that influences female reproductive physiology and behavior. Our findings show that once male house mice become territorial and socially dominant, they upregulate the amount and types of excreted MUPs, which increases the intensities of volatiles and the attractiveness of their urinary scent to sexually receptive females.
Highlights
We investigated the regulation of chemical signals of house mice living in seminatural social conditions
Our aims here were to test whether house mice regulate the excretion of major urinary proteins (MUPs) or volatile pheromone ligands depending upon their social status, and whether such regulation influences the attractiveness of their odor to potential mates[24]
We examined whether social status influenced the intensity of pheromones that are MUP ligands, and found significant grouping according to social status among males (ANOSIM, intact urine: global R = 0.43, p = 0.009; denatured urine: global R = 0.51, p = 0.002; Supplementary Fig. S9), but not females (ANOSIM, intact urine: global R = −0.02, p = 0.50; denatured urine: global R = −0.12, p = 0.65)
Summary
We investigated the regulation of chemical signals of house mice living in seminatural social conditions. ‘Dominant’ males excrete higher quantities of MUPs24,43–45 and volatile pheromone ligands (α- and β- farnesene and SBT39,46) than defeated ‘subordinates’ These findings might help explain how females discriminate winners from losers[32,34,35] and how dominant, territorial males achieve greater reproductive success than subordinates[47,48,49]. A recent study on laboratory mice indicates that winning dyadic agonistic assays did not predict social dominance in more complex social environments[45] It is unclear whether MUP excretion is regulated according to social status, or vice versa, as previously suggested[44] and it is unclear whether winners upregulate or losers down-regulate MUPs and volatile pheromones. The regulation of MUPs and volatiles have mainly been investigated independently, with few exceptions[61] and studies are needed to examine how MUP regulation influences odor, as well as the excretion of volatiles
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