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Curr Zool

Title:		Exaggerated male pheromones in rats may increase predation cost
Author(s):		Zhang YH; Liang HC; Guo HL; Zhang JX;
Address:		"State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insects and Rodents in Agriculture, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. College of Horticulture and Landscape, Tianjin Agricultural University, Tianjin 300384, China, and. College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"
Journal Title:		Curr Zool
Year:		2016
Volume:		20160412
Issue:		5
Page Number:		431 - 437
DOI:		10.1093/cz/zow047
ISSN/ISBN:		1674-5507 (Print) 1674-5507 (Linking)
Abstract:		"Male animals with more conspicuous visual and acoustic signals increase their mating success, but also increase the risk of being attacked by eavesdropping predators. In rodents, males with richer sex pheromones often have higher attractiveness to females, but whether or not the males are also at higher predation risk is poorly known. Here, we used 2 laboratory inbred strains of the rat Rattus norvegicus, Brown Norway (BN) and Lewis (LEW), and wild-captured rats as odor donors to assess the relationship between the pheromone levels in male rats and attractiveness to domestic cats Felis catus. LEW rats had significantly higher levels of male pheromones (e.g., 4-heptanone, 2-heptanone, and 9-hydroxy-2-nonanone) than BN rats. Simultaneously, wild-captured male rats were selectively assigned to 2 groups (HIGH or LOW) based on pheromone content as determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Binary choice tests were carried out during the night in the test room. We found that cats spent more time investigating male bedding and urine of LEW rats than the counterpart of BN rats. Likewise, cats also preferred bedding and urine odor of the HIGH wild rats compared with the counterparts of LOW wild rats. Adding synthetic analogs of the 3 pheromone ketones into the urine of either BN rats or LOW wild rats significantly increased their attractiveness to cats. Our data suggest that the rats with exaggerated male pheromones more strongly attracted predators and thus as a consequence may suffer from elevated predation risk"
Keywords:		olfactory preference pheromone predator risk sexual ornament;
Notes:		"PubMed-not-MEDLINEZhang, Yao-Hua Liang, Hong-Chun Guo, Hong-Ling Zhang, Jian-Xu eng England 2016/10/01 Curr Zool. 2016 Oct; 62(5):431-437. doi: 10.1093/cz/zow047. Epub 2016 Apr 12"