Odor Communication and Mate Choice in Rodents
Open accessAbstract
This paper details how chemical communication is affected by ecological challenges such as finding mates. I list several conditions that affect the decision to attract mates, the decision to respond to the signals of potential mates and how the response depends on context. These mate-choice decisions and their outcomes will depend on the life history constraints placed on individuals such as their fecundity, sex, lifespan, opportunities to mate in the future and age at senescence. Consequently, the sender’s decision to scent mark or self-groom as well as the receiver’s choice of response represents a tradeoff between the current costs of the participant’s own survival and future reproduction against that of reproducing now. The decision to scent mark and the response to the scent mark of opposite-sex conspecifics should maximize the fitness of the participants in that context.
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Olfactory cues carry information about sex, strain, social rank, health, and sexual receptivity.
“Olfactory cues carry information about sex, strain, social rank, health, and sexual receptivity [86,87].”
From The Neurobiology of Love and Pair Bonding from Human and Animal Perspectives (2023) · cites this paper as [86]
The Introduction and Overview says scent conveys sex and receptivity, while §1.1 says scent marks signal health and links diet-related odor differences to social status. Section 1.3 discusses odor differences associated with genotype and MHC type, but does not establish that the cues identify an animal’s strain; §1.1 also treats social rank as an indirect inference from diet rather than a demonstrated odor signal. No page numbers are available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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References 148 · Cited by 55
Research works printed but not linked: 8
- [3]Brown R.E. Macdonald D.W. Social Odours in Mammals Clarendon Press Oxford, UK 1985
- [81]Brown R.E. Roser B. Singh P.B. The MHC and individual odors in rats Chemical Signals in Vertebrates Macdonald D.W. Müller-Schwarze D. Natynczuk S.E. Oxford University Press New York, NY, USA 1990 Volume 5 228 243
- [106]Thiessen D.D. Thermoenergetics and the evolution of pheromone communication Progress in Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology Sprague J.M. Epstein A.N. Academic Press New York, NY, USA 1977 Volume 7 91 191
- [117]Birkhead T.R. Promiscuity: An Evolutionary History of Sperm Competition Harvard University Press Cambridge, MA, USA 2000
- [120]Jennions M.D. Kokko H. Sexual selection: Mate choice The Princeton Guide to Evolution Losos J. Baum D. Futuyama D.J. Hoekestra H. Lenski R. Moore A. Princeton University Press Princeton, NJ, USA 2014 647 654
- [138]Ferkin M.H. Information by chemical signals in rodents Chemical Signals in Vertebrates Buesching C.D. Müller C.T. Springer International Publishing AG Cham, Switzerland 2019 Volume 14 submitted
- [139]Dewsbury D.A. Sperm competition in muroid rodents Sperm Competition and the Evolution of Animal Mating Systems Smith R.R. Academic Press New York, NY, USA 1984 547 571
- [155]Stearns S.C. The Evolution of Life Histories Oxford University Press Oxford, UK 1992
- Authors
- Ferkin, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Memphis (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ferkin, Michael
- ORCID
- Ferkin, Michael
- Venue
- Biology
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2018-01-25
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 13
- ISSN
- 2079-7737 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5872039
- OpenAlex
- W2788608267
- Cited by
- 55
- References
- 148
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 0.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Sensory Systems › Olfactory and Sensory Function Studies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Insect Science › Insect Pheromone Research and Control
- Keywords
- chemical communication, mate choice, scent marking, self-grooming, life-history trade-offs, reproductive trade-offs, senescence, context-dependent signaling
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