Chemical cues of identity and reproductive status in Japanese macaques
Authors
Rigaill, LucieVaglio, Stefano
Setchell, Joanna M
Suda-Hashimoto, Naoko
Furuichi, Takeshi
Garcia, Cécile
Issue Date
2022-06-27
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Olfactory communication plays an important role in the regulation of socio-sexual interactions in mammals. There is growing evidence that both human and non-human primates rely on odors to inform their mating decisions. Nevertheless, studies of primate chemical ecology remain scarce due to the difficulty of obtaining and analyzing samples. We analyzed 67 urine samples from 5 captive female Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) and 30 vaginal swabs from 3 of these females using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and examined the relationship between odor (compounds identified, richness, intensity, and diversity) and female identity as well as cycle phase. We found a total of 36 urine compounds of which we identified 31, and 68 vaginal compounds of which we identified 37. Our results suggest that urine and vaginal odor varied more between individuals than within cycle phases. However, we found that within a female cycle, urine samples from similar phases may cluster more than samples from different phases. Our results suggest that female odor may encode information about identity (vaginal and urine odor) and reproductive status (urine odor). The question of how conspecifics use female urine and vaginal odor remains open and could be tested using bioassays. Our results and their interpretation are constrained by our limited sample size and our study design. Nonetheless, our study provides insight into the potential signaling role of female odor in sexual communication in Japanese macaques and contributes to our understanding of how odors may influence mating strategies in primates.Citation
Rigaill, L., Vaglio, S., Setchell, J. M., Suda-Hashimoto, N., et al (2022) Chemical cues of identity and reproductive status in Japanese macaques, American Journal of Primatology, 84(8), e23411.Publisher
Wiley-BlackwellJournal
American Journal of PrimatologyAdditional Links
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajp.23411Type
Journal articleLanguage
enDescription
This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Wiley in American Journal of Primatology on 27/06/2022, available online: https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.23411 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.ISSN
0275-2565EISSN
1098-2345Sponsors
This work was financially supported by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) to LR (Kakenhi 15J01067) and by the CNRS to CG (PICS N°7258 - Multimodal advertisement of reproductive status in Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata)). The authors declare no conflict of interestae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1002/ajp.23411