Male meadow vole scent marking 1 rival odor context

Meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus) rely on olfactory communication, such as scent marking, to find and secure mating opportunities during the breeding season. Scent marks, and odors in general, provide information about the donors and persists in the environment for extended periods, allowing a wide audience. Whether a vole responds to another scent mark(s), or odor(s), depends on the social context and the information the odor provides about the donor(s). Therefore, we examined if male scent marking towards a social odor or female meadow voles is influenced by information present or previously encountered based on contextual differences in the social odor. We presented males with two odor associations of a male with a female with contextual differences in the age of the rival. We tested male scent marking with both the odors present, current information, and with the females from the social information, prior information. It was found that rival male age did not affect the scent ma...草原田鼠（Microtus pennsylvanicus）会借助气味标记等嗅觉通讯手段，在繁殖季寻觅并确保交配机会。气味标记乃至一般气味均可传递释放者的相关信息，且可在环境中长时间留存，可供大量个体接收。田鼠是否会对其他个体的气味标记或气味做出反应，取决于当前社会情境以及气味所传递的关于释放者的信息。因此，本研究旨在探究：当社会气味因竞争者年龄存在情境差异时，雄性草原田鼠对社会气味或雌性草原田鼠的气味标记行为，是否会受到当前或过往获取的信息的影响。我们为雄性田鼠设置了两组由雄性竞争者与雌性组成的气味关联组合，两组组合中竞争者的年龄存在情境差异。我们分别在当前气味信息存在的情境下，以及使用源自过往社会信息的雌性气味时，对雄性的气味标记行为进行了测试。研究发现，雄性竞争者的年龄并未对气味标记行为产生影响……