Species, Gender, and Identity: Cracking Petrels’ Sociochemical Code

Abstract

Avian chemosignaling remains relatively unexplored, but its potential importance in birds' social behaviors is becoming recognized. Procellariiform seabirds provide particularly appropriate models for investigating these topics as they possess a well-developed olfactory system and unequalled associated capabilities. We present here results from a detailed chemical examination of the uropygial secretions (the main source of avian exogenous chemicals) from 2 petrel species, Antarctic prions and blue petrels. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry techniques and recently developed multivariate tools, we demonstrate that the secretions contain critical socioecological information such as species, gender, and individual identity. Importantly, these chemosignals correlate with some of the birds' olfactory behaviors demonstrated in the field. The molecules found to be associated with social information were essentially large unsaturated compounds, suggesting that these may be precursors of, or correlates to the actual airborne signals. Although the species-specific chemosignal may be involved in interspecific competition at the breeding grounds, the role of the sexually specific chemosignal remains unclear. The existence of individually specific signals (i.e., chemical signatures) in these birds has important implications for processes such as individual recognition and genetically based mate choice already suspected for this group. Our results open promising avenues of research for the study of avian chemical communication.