National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, 1500 Remount Rd, Front Royal, VA, 22630, USA.
Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
J Chem Ecol. 2019 Oct;45(10):823-837. doi: 10.1007/s10886-019-01113-0. Epub 2019 Nov 7.
European badgers, Meles meles, are group-living in the UK, and demarcate their ranges with shared latrines. As carnivores, badgers possess paired anal glands, but olfactory information on the content of badger anal gland secretion (AGS) is largely uninvestigated. Here, we examined the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of AGS samples from 57 free-living badgers using solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. AGS was rich in alkanes (C7-C15, 14.3% of identified compounds), aldehydes (C5-C14, 9.7%), phenols (C6-C15, 9.5%), alcohols (C5-C10, 7.3%), aromatic hydrocarbons (C6-C13, 6.8%), ketones (C6-C13, 6.3%) and carboxylic acids (C3-C12, 5.6%) and contained a variety of esters, sulfurous and nitrogenous compounds, and ethers. The number of VOCs per profile ranged from 20 to 111 (mean = 65.4; ± 22.7 SD), but no compound was unique for any of the biological categories. After normalization of the raw data using Probabilistic Quotient Normalization, we produced a resemblance matrix by calculating the Euclidian distances between all sample pairs. PERMANOVA revealed that AGS composition differs between social groups, and concentration and complexity in terms of number of measurable VOCs varies between seasons and years. AGS VOC profiles encode individual identity, sex and vary with female reproductive state, indicating an important function in intraspecific communication. Because AGS is excreted together with fecal deposits, we conclude that chemical complexity of AGS enables particularly latrine-using species, such as badgers, to advertise more complex individual-specific information than in feces alone.
欧洲獾，Meles meles，在英国是群居的，它们通过共享的便坑来划定自己的范围。作为食肉动物，獾有一对肛门腺，但关于獾肛门腺分泌物（AGS）内容的嗅觉信息在很大程度上尚未得到研究。在这里，我们使用固相微萃取（SPME）和气相色谱-质谱法检查了 57 只自由生活的獾的 AGS 样本中的挥发性有机化合物（VOC）。AGS 富含烷烃（C7-C15，占鉴定化合物的 14.3％）、醛（C5-C14，9.7％）、酚（C6-C15，9.5％）、醇（C5-C10，7.3％）、芳烃（C6-C13，6.8％）、酮（C6-C13，6.3％）和羧酸（C3-C12，5.6％），并且含有各种酯、含硫和含氮化合物以及醚。每个图谱中的 VOC 数量范围从 20 到 111 个（平均值为 65.4；±22.7 SD），但没有一种化合物是任何生物类别的独特化合物。在用概率商归一化对原始数据进行归一化后，我们通过计算所有样本对之间的欧几里得距离生成了一个相似性矩阵。PERMANOVA 表明 AGS 组成在社会群体之间存在差异，并且在季节和年份之间，VOC 的浓度和复杂性在数量上有所不同。AGS VOC 谱编码个体身份、性别，并随雌性生殖状态而变化，表明其在种内交流中具有重要功能。由于 AGS 与粪便沉积物一起排出，因此我们得出结论，AGS 的化学复杂性使像獾这样特别使用便坑的物种能够传达比仅粪便更复杂的个体特定信息。
