Editor's choice Uropygial gland volatiles facilitate species recognition between two sympatric sibling bird species

Yao-Hua Zhang, Yu-Feng Du and Jian-Xu Zhang

Behavioral Ecology, 2013, vol. 24, issue 6, 1271-1278

Abstract: Visual and acoustic cues in birds have been well documented to play a role in species recognition between closely related bird species. Here, we aimed to test whether chemical cues also play a role in avian species recognition between 2 sympatric sibling species of waxwings, Bombycilla garrulus and Bombycilla japonica. Using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, we characterized from uropygial gland secretions 38 compounds that were quantitatively divergent between species and exhibited sex differences within species. Nine major compounds, including 6 linear alkanols and 3 carboxylic acids, which accounted for more than 85% of all compounds were used for simulation of the scents. Female B. garrulus exhibited a striking preference for their mirror images scented with either conspecific body odor or its synthetic analogs and avoided the scents of the sibling species B. japonica in a Y-maze olfactometer. Our results suggest that the volatile components of uropygial gland secretions have diverged in composition and these differences contribute to species recognition between sympatric sibling bird species and subsequently affect the likehood of speciation.

Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/art068 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:24:y:2013:i:6:p:1271-1278.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().