Symbiotic bacteria appear to mediate hyena social odors.

ABSTRACT: All animals harbor beneficial microbes. One way these microbes can benefit their animal hosts is by increasing the diversity and efficacy of communication signals available to the hosts. The fermentation hypothesis for mammalian chemical communication posits that bacteria in the scent glands of mammals generate odorous metabolites used by their hosts for communication and that variation in host chemical signals is a product of underlying variation in the bacterial communities inhabiting the scent glands. An effective test of this hypothesis would require accurate surveys of the bacterial communities in mammals' scent glands and complementary data on the odorant profiles of scent secretions--both of which have been historically lacking. Here we use next-generation sequencing to survey deepl

SUBMITTER: Theis KR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3856825 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature