Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol. 2010 Oct;196(10):751-66. doi: 10.1007/s00359-010-0534-4. Epub 2010 May 21.
Birds are anosmic or at best microsmatic… This misbelief persisted until very recently and has strongly influenced the outcome of communication studies in birds, with olfaction remaining neglected as compared to acoustic and visual channels. However, there is now clear empirical evidence showing that olfaction is perfectly functional in birds and birds use olfactory information in a variety of ethological contexts. Although the existence of pheromones has never been formally demonstrated in this vertebrate class, different groups of birds, such as petrels, auklets and ducks have been shown to produce specific scents that could play a significant role in within-species social interactions. Behavioral experiments have indeed demonstrated that these odors influence the behavior of conspecifics. Additionally, in quail, deprivation of olfactory inputs decreases neuronal activation induced by sexual interactions with a female. It seems therefore well established that birds enjoy a functional sense of smell and a fast growing body of experimental evidence suggests that they use this channel of olfactory communication to control their social life. The unequivocal identification of an avian pheromone is, however, still ahead of us but there are now many exciting opportunities to unravel the behavioral and physiological particularities of chemical communication in birds.
鸟类是没有嗅觉的，或者最多只有微弱的嗅觉……这种误解一直持续到最近，并且强烈影响了鸟类交流研究的结果，与声学和视觉通道相比，嗅觉仍然被忽视。然而，现在有明确的经验证据表明，嗅觉在鸟类中是完全有效的，鸟类在各种行为背景下使用嗅觉信息。尽管在这种脊椎动物中从未正式证明过信息素的存在，但不同种类的鸟类，如海燕、海雀和鸭子，已经被证明会产生特定的气味，这些气味可能在种内的社会互动中发挥重要作用。行为实验确实表明，这些气味会影响同种个体的行为。此外，在鹌鹑中，嗅觉输入的剥夺会降低与雌性进行性互动时诱导的神经元激活。因此，鸟类拥有功能嗅觉似乎已经得到了很好的证实，越来越多的实验证据表明，它们利用这种嗅觉通讯渠道来控制自己的社交生活。然而，确切地识别一种鸟类信息素仍然是我们的目标，但现在有许多令人兴奋的机会来揭示鸟类化学通讯的行为和生理特殊性。
