Chemical fingerprints reveal clues to identity, heterozygosity, and relatedness.

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Main Authors: Pitcher, Benjamin J., Charrier, Isabelle, Harcourt, Robert G.
• Other Authors: Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay (NeuroPSI), Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11 (UP11)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2015
• Subjects: MESH: Animals; MESH: Fur Seals; MESH: Genetic Variation; MESH: Microsatellite Repeats; MESH: Skin; [SDV.NEU.NB]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC]/Neurobiology; [SDV.NEU.PC]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC]/Psychology and behavior; [SDV.NEU.SC]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC]/Cognitive Sciences; Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctic Fur Seals
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01306654; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1514278112

International audience Olfaction is a key sense for mammals, and as a result chemical signals are an important means of communication for most mammalian species. It has long been established that most mammals make, distribute, and respond to chemosignals in a range of contexts, including reproduction, parent–offspring interactions, and social relationships (1). However, most aquatic mammals are unable to use olfaction when foraging, and evidence for its role in social behavior has been equivocal. Historically, reports in the literature have ranged from describing the semiaquatic pinnipeds as microsmatic (2) to those that have observed the high prevalence of naso-nasal inspection during social interactions (Fig. 1), and so inferred an important role for olfactory recognition (3). It is only recently that we experimentally confirmed in wild Australian sea lions that olfactory cues are a reliable mechanism in offspring recognition even in the absence of other sensory cues (4). Similarly, new experimental evidence in other large, wild mammals indicates the importance of olfactory cues in discrimination of potential mates and competitors as well as kin (5⇓–7). However, perhaps due to both the complexity of working with natural vertebrate populations and the complexity of vertebrate scents, the mechanistic basis of chemical communication has received little study (8). In PNAS, Stoffel et al. (9) provide an important advance in the understanding of chemical communication in wild mammals. They compared genetic similarity and the chemical profiles of Antarctic fur seals in two colonies. In so doing they revealed that individual-specific chemical fingerprints have both inherited and environmental components and seem to encode mother–offspring similarity, heterozygosity, and genetic relatedness. The implications of these findings for chemical communication in wild mammals are profound.