Drea Christine M, Goodwin Thomas E, delBarco-Trillo Javier
Departments of Evolutionary Anthropology and Biology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA,
Department of Chemistry, Hendrix College, Conway, Arkansas, USA.
Folia Primatol (Basel). 2019;90(5):422-438. doi: 10.1159/000495076. Epub 2019 Aug 15.
Scent marking is a well-established, but highly variable, mode of communication among strepsirrhine primates. We begin by reviewing this literature, focusing on nocturnal species. Our understanding about the information content of scent signals and the factors driving species diversity remains incomplete, owing to difficulties in acquiring comparative chemical data. We therefore re-examine such a data set, representing the richness and relative abundance of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the urine of 12 species (from Galagidae, Lorisidae, Daubentoniidae, Cheirogaleidae, Indriidae, and Lemuridae), to explore differences between nocturnal, diurnal and cathemeral species. As predicted by the variable importance of urine marking across species, the urine of nocturnal strepsirrhines contained the most VOCs and putative semiochemicals, differed significantly in composition from that of diurnal and cathemeral species and showed the strongest species scent "signatures." Relevant to retracing the evolutionary trajectory of cathemeral strepsirrhines, nocturnal and diurnal species were most differentiated in their VOCs, with cathemeral species being intermediary, but more closely aligned with diurnal species. These data support cathemerality as an ancient expansion of diurnal animals into a nocturnal niche. Consideration of the traits and variables associated with olfactory communication offers a profitable new way for examining species diversity and patterns of evolutionary change.
气味标记是狐猴型灵长类动物中一种既定但高度可变的交流方式。我们首先回顾这方面的文献，重点关注夜行性物种。由于获取比较化学数据存在困难，我们对气味信号的信息内容以及驱动物种多样性的因素的理解仍不完整。因此，我们重新审视了这样一个数据集，该数据集代表了12个物种（来自婴猴科、懒猴科、指猴科、鼠狐猴科、大狐猴科和狐猴科）尿液中挥发性有机化合物（VOCs）的丰富度和相对丰度，以探索夜行性、昼行性和晨昏性物种之间的差异。正如跨物种尿液标记的可变重要性所预测的那样，夜行性狐猴型灵长类动物的尿液含有最多的挥发性有机化合物和假定的信息素，其成分与昼行性和晨昏性物种有显著差异，并显示出最强的物种气味“特征”。与追溯晨昏性狐猴型灵长类动物的进化轨迹相关的是，夜行性和昼行性物种在挥发性有机化合物方面差异最大，晨昏性物种处于中间位置，但与昼行性物种更为接近。这些数据支持晨昏性是昼行性动物向夜行性生态位的古老扩展。考虑与嗅觉交流相关的特征和变量为研究物种多样性和进化变化模式提供了一种有益的新方法。
