Sørensen P W, Scott A P
Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, University of Minnesota, St Paul 55108.
Acta Physiol Scand. 1994 Oct;152(2):191-205. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-1716.1994.tb09799.x.
It is becoming increasingly evident that many teleost fish use hormones and their metabolites as sex pheromones. Although hormonal pheromone systems of several species of fish have now been characterized, that of the goldfish is the best understood. Reproductively-active female goldfish sequentially release derivatives of three steroidal hormones and two prostaglandins which have specific and potent actions on the goldfish olfactory sense and subsequently conspecific reproductive behaviour and physiology. Three goldfish hormonal pheromones are unmodified sex hormones which are also found in the blood of many other species of fish and are therefore unlikely to be species-specific. This scenario evokes two related questions. First, how did these systems evolve? Second, do hormonal pheromones represent specialized signals used for communication or rather simple metabolites which fish have evolved the ability to detect because of their intrinsic meaning ('spying')? Here we review hormonal pheromone function in fish and then describe a study of the goldfish which tests whether hormonal pheromones are specialized communicatory signals by comparing the profile of steroids released by goldfish with their olfactory responsiveness to these compounds. Little correlation between signal production and detection was found and we conclude that the goldfish hormonal pheromone system most likely exemplifies spying.
越来越明显的是，许多硬骨鱼利用激素及其代谢产物作为性信息素。虽然现在已经对几种鱼类的激素信息素系统进行了表征，但金鱼的激素信息素系统是了解得最清楚的。具有繁殖活性的雌性金鱼会依次释放三种甾体激素和两种前列腺素的衍生物，这些衍生物对金鱼的嗅觉以及随后的同种生殖行为和生理具有特定而有效的作用。三种金鱼激素信息素是未修饰的性激素，在许多其他鱼类的血液中也能找到，因此不太可能具有物种特异性。这种情况引发了两个相关问题。第一，这些系统是如何进化的？第二，激素信息素是代表用于交流的专门信号，还是仅仅是鱼类由于其内在意义（“窥探”）而进化出检测能力的简单代谢产物？在这里，我们回顾鱼类激素信息素的功能，然后描述一项对金鱼的研究，该研究通过比较金鱼释放的类固醇与其对这些化合物的嗅觉反应来测试激素信息素是否是专门的通讯信号。结果发现信号产生与检测之间几乎没有相关性，我们得出结论，金鱼激素信息素系统很可能是“窥探”的例证。
