Abstracts - Association for Chemoreception Sciences

#P125 POSTER SESSION III: OLFACTORY
PERCEPTION, HUMAN PSYCHOPHYSICS &
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR; PERIPHERAL TASTE
DEVELOPMENT & SIGNALING
Songbird Chemosignaling: Differentiation and Detection of
Volatile Compounds by Dark-eyed Juncos
Danielle J Whittaker 1 , Helena A Soini 2,3 , Jonathan W Atwell 1 ,
Allison Miller 4 , Amanda L Posto 2,3 , Milos V Novotny 2,3 ,
Ellen D Ketterson 1
1
Indiana University Dept of Biology Bloomington, IN, USA,
2
Indiana University Dept of Chemistry Bloomington, IN, USA,
3
Institute for Pheromone Research, Indiana University
Bloomington, IN, USA, 4 University of California,
San Diego Dept of Biology San Diego, CA, USA
Although chemical communication is known to play an important
role in reproduction in many animal species, little is known about
this mode of communication in birds. In previous work (Soini et
al 2007, J. Chem. Ecol.) we found that concentrations of volatile
compounds in preen gland secretions of Dark-eyed Juncos
(Junco hyemalis) increased markedly when individuals were
moved from short to long days, suggesting a role for these
compounds in reproductive behavior. Chemosignals involved in
mate recognition and mate assessment are hypothesized to differ
1) among species, 2) among individuals within a species,
3) between sexes and 4) among reproductively isolated
populations. We tested these hypotheses in passerines, focusing on
captive dark-eyed juncos from two populations: 1) a recently
isolated population at the University of California, San Diego
campus that has shown rapid evolution of behavioral,
morphological, and physiological traits and 2) the assumed
ancestral range population at Laguna Mountain. Using gas
chromatography - mass spectrometry, we measured volatile
organic compound profiles in preen oil and found high individual
repeatability, as well as significant differences among individuals,
sexes, and populations. We also sampled preen oil from an
additional 30 species in 10 families that breed in southern Indiana
and found divergence in volatile composition among species.
Finally, we conducted behavioral tests and found preliminary
evidence suggesting that juncos may be able to discriminate
among preen oil odors from different species, sexes, and
individuals. Together our data suggest that volatile compounds
in avian preen oil may fulfill criteria for mate recognition and
mate assessment chemosignals. Acknowledgements: This work
was funded by the Indiana University Faculty Research Support
Program, National Science Foundation, and the Indiana Academy
of Science. This work was also partly sponsored by Lilly
Chemistry Alumni Chair (Indiana University), and by the Indiana
METACyt initiative of Indiana University, funded in part through
a major grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc.
#P126 POSTER SESSION III: OLFACTORY
PERCEPTION, HUMAN PSYCHOPHYSICS &
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR; PERIPHERAL TASTE
DEVELOPMENT & SIGNALING
Impact of Complexity on the Processing of Odour Mixture
in Newborn Rabbits
Charlotte Sinding 1,2 , Thierry Thomas-Danguin 2 , Benoist Schaal 1 ,
Gérard Coureaud 1
1
Centre des Sciences du Goût, Equipe d’Ethologie et de
Psychobiologie Sensorielle, UMR 5170 CNRS/UB/INRA Dijon,
France, 2 FLAVIC, Equipe Perception de la Flaveur, UMR 1129
ENESAD/INRA/UB Dijon, France
Humans have limited capabilities to elementally process odour
mixtures. In a mixture including more than 16 odorants, we do
not recognize any individual component, and no more than 4 in a
less than 16 odorants mixture (Jinks et Laing, 1999). Are those
characteristics conserved within the Mammalia class? Here, we
evaluated whether European newborn rabbits process elementally
(perception of each component’s odour) or configurally
(perception of a typical odour different from components’
odours) a 6 odorants mixture inducing the configural perception
of “red cordial” in Human (Le Berre et al., 2008). We started to
examine i) how many odorants rabbit pups discriminate in the
mixture and ii) whether the perceptual effect evidenced in human
is also observed in rabbit. To that goal, we followed a validated
method of conditioning and behavioural testing (Coureaud et al.,
2008, 2009). In Experiment 1, 70 pups have been conditioned to
the mixture by association with the Mammary Pheromone and
dispatched 24h later in 3 groups, each one tested in response to
the mixture and 2 of its components. Pups highly responded to
the mixture (>73.7%) and its components (>81.2 %). This
suggests that newborn mammals efficiently extract elements from
complex odour mixtures. In Experiment 2, 4 groups of pups
(n = 17-20/group) were each one conditioned to a different
component of the mixture and tested to this odorant, one not
learned component, and the mixture. The pups strongly
responded to the learned odorant (>68.42%) but only weakly to
the unfamiliar component and to the mixture (