Meadow voles differentiate between scents of different sources

What is it about?

Male meadow voles discriminate between male and female scent donors when exposed to the feces, urine or mouth scent marks of female scent donors. A previous experiment demonstrates that each of these sources can convey the sex of a scent donor. However, using three different scent sources to communicate the same information is metabolically costly and increases the chance that predators and competitors may use information provided in these scent marks to their advantage. We examined whether these sexually specific scent sources may also provide information other than scent donor sex. We found that male meadow voles can discriminate between the feces, urine, and mouth scent marks of a single female scent donor. Thus, various scent sources of the meadow vole provide redundant and distinct information about a scent donor. Redundant information provided by distinct scent sources may be needed to provide the social context of a scent mark, which would allow individuals receiving these signals to accurately respond.

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