Chemical communication in yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris) and brown bear (Ursus arctos): Paper 1 Chemical composition of perioral, orbital and anal gland secretion of yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris): glandular differences and coding for sex

Résumé

Mammals use scent for communication, and olfactory information about sex is often released through specialized scent glands. Yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) posses three different scent glands, but little is known about the chemical information in their gland secretion. With a combination of ethanol extraction and gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, we investigated the perioral (PGS), orbital (OGS) and anal gland secretion (AGS) from 9 females and 14 males. We found glandular differences in gas chromatograms of PGS, OGS and AGS, and detected 15, 22 and 21 compounds in PGS, OGS and AGS respectively. AGS contained significantly more compounds than OGS, and marginally significant more than PGS. OGS and PGS did not differ in number of compounds. These results supported the hypothesis that PGS, OGS and AGS have different chemical functions. We did not find any sex differences in gas chromatograms, in number of compounds or in digital (presence/absence of compounds) and analog coding (relative abundance of shared compounds) of PGS, OGS and AGS. Theses results do not support the hypothesis that PGS, OGS and AGS code for sex. However, we found one marginal significant AGS compound that might code for sex through analog coding.