Male scent stimulates female goats’ fertility

Nature ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Owens
Keyword(s):  
2009 ◽  
Vol 276 (1662) ◽  
pp. 1723-1729 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart D Becker ◽  
Jane L Hurst

Exposure of recently mated female rodents to unfamiliar male scents during daily prolactin surges results in pregnancy failure (the ‘Bruce effect’). Control of nasal contact with male scents during these narrow windows of sensitivity could allow females to maintain or terminate pregnancy, but female behavioural changes specifically during this critical period have not been investigated. We examined the approach or avoidance of familiar stud strain and unfamiliar male scents by recently mated female mice. Females that maintained pregnancy avoided both unfamiliar and familiar male scent during critical periods of susceptibility for the Bruce effect. By contrast, females that did not maintain pregnancy showed a sharp rise in the time spent with unfamiliar male scent during this critical period. Manipulation of the social status of unfamiliar and stud strain scent donors did not affect the likelihood of pregnancy block, although females spent more time with dominant male scents across all time periods. The ability to control the Bruce effect through behaviour during brief sensitivity just before dusk, when females are likely to be in nest sites, provides a mechanism by which females may adjust their reproductive investment according to nest site social stability and likelihood of offspring survival.


1935 ◽  
Vol 117 (806) ◽  
pp. 476-482 ◽  

My friend, Professor Sir Edward Poulton, F. R. S., has handed me a copy of Mr. O. H. Latter’s account of his observations on the courtship of the butterfly Euplœa core asela , and the accompanying use of the scent-brushes of the male. We are deeply indebted to Mr. G. M. Henry, of the Colombo Museum, for a supply of material of the species, carefully preserved and packed, from which the sections here described have been made. As will be learned from Mr. Latter’s paper and the references therewith, special scent-organs in male insects are of frequent occurrence and have long been known. The organs in Euplœa are not of an unusual character, but Mr. Latter’s observations are entirely new, and show that the scent-apparatus is used, at least in this species, to attract the female from a distance . This function, which I venture to term telegamic , has not hitherto been recognized except perhaps in moths of the genus Hepialus , in which the action occurs over only very short distances. The scents produced by male insects have been supposed to be rather of an aphrodisiac character, coming into play only when contact, or at least proximity has been attained. Many female moths produce a directive scent, invariably, so far as is at present known, imperceptible to the human sense. Male moths will fly from great distances (experimentally for more than a mile) in response to its stimulus. Such females as have been microscopically examined do not possess special glands for the secretion of these directive odours. The whole hypodermal layer underlying the terminal segments of the abdomen is modified into a secreting epithelium, and the scent appears to be diffused by osmosis. Even among day-flying moths, sight does not appear to be an important factor in the communication of the sexes. In the majority of the butterflies, however, sight seems to be of first importance, though the butterfly’s eye is not more highly developed than is that of most moths. Whilst scent organs of considerable complexity are of continual occurrence in moths, they tend to be of a simpler character in butterflies, being usually in the form of special wing-scales which secrete a scent, frequently perceptible to the human sense. Nothing corresponding with the directive odours of female moths has so far been observed in butterflies, and of those species in which scent organs have been found, they occur only in the males, except when the odours produced are defensive, when they may be found in both sexes, as in the genus Heliconius . A high development of male scent-organs is, however, found in the Danaine butterflies, and especially in the genus Amauris , the species of which have active scentglands in the hind wings and extrusible abdominal brushes. Müller, in 1877, suggested a possible correlation between the brushes and the wing-glands, but it was not until 34 years later that the actual application of the brush to the gland was observed by Lamborn in Africa. A peculiar feature in some species is that a dust is formed by the breaking up of specially secreted fine hairs which pulverize into small particles. This dust may be formed either in the brush, as in Amauris psyttalea , or in the wing-glands, as in those species in which the gland is in the form of a pocket.


2014 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 313-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah A. Roberts ◽  
Amanda J. Davidson ◽  
Robert J. Beynon ◽  
Jane L. Hurst

1976 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. C. Birch ◽  
G. G. Grant ◽  
U. E. Brady
Keyword(s):  

2005 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon T. Pochron ◽  
Toni Lyn Morelli ◽  
Pia Terranova ◽  
Jessica Scirbona ◽  
Justin Cohen ◽  
...  

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Polymnia Georgiou ◽  
Panos Zanos ◽  
Ta-Chung M Mou ◽  
Xiaoxian An ◽  
Danielle M Gerhard ◽  
...  

Differential rodent responses to the sex of human experimenters could have far reaching consequences in preclinical studies. Here, we show that the sex of human experimenters affects mouse behaviours and responses to the rapid-acting antidepressant ketamine and its bioactive metabolite (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine. We found that mice manifest aversion to human male odours, preference to female odours, and increased susceptibility to stress when handled by male experimenters. This male induced aversion and stress susceptibility is mediated by the activation of brain corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) neurons projecting from the entorhinal cortrex to hippocampal area CA1. We further establish that exposure to male scent prior to ketamine administration activates CRF neurons projecting from the entorhinal cortex to hippocampus, and that CRF is necessary and sufficient for the in vivo and in vitro actions of ketamine. Further understanding of the specific and quantitative contributions of the sex of human experimenters to different experimental outcomes in rodents may lead not only to reduced heterogeneity between studies, but also increased capability to uncover novel biological mechanisms.


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