scholarly journals Chemical fingerprints encode mother–offspring similarity, colony membership, relatedness, and genetic quality in fur seals

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (36) ◽  
pp. E5005-E5012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin A. Stoffel ◽  
Barbara A. Caspers ◽  
Jaume Forcada ◽  
Athina Giannakara ◽  
Markus Baier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Chemical Cues ◽  
Genetic Relatedness ◽  
Kin Recognition ◽  
Chemical Similarity ◽  
Chemical Fingerprints ◽  
Fur Seals ◽  
Large Panel ◽  
Chemical Fingerprinting ◽  
Mechanistic Basis

Chemical communication underpins virtually all aspects of vertebrate social life, yet remains poorly understood because of its highly complex mechanistic basis. We therefore used chemical fingerprinting of skin swabs and genetic analysis to explore the chemical cues that may underlie mother–offspring recognition in colonially breeding Antarctic fur seals. By sampling mother–offspring pairs from two different colonies, using a variety of statistical approaches and genotyping a large panel of microsatellite loci, we show that colony membership, mother–offspring similarity, heterozygosity, and genetic relatedness are all chemically encoded. Moreover, chemical similarity between mothers and offspring reflects a combination of genetic and environmental influences, the former partly encoded by substances resembling known pheromones. Our findings reveal the diversity of information contained within chemical fingerprints and have implications for understanding mother–offspring communication, kin recognition, and mate choice.

scholarly journals Offspring and adult chemosensory recognition by an amphisbaenian reptile may allow maintaining familiar links in the fossorial environment

PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e10780
Author(s):  
José Martín ◽  
Ernesto Raya-García ◽  
Jesús Ortega ◽  
Pilar López
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Chemical Cues ◽  
Kin Recognition ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Tongue Flick ◽  
Adult Males ◽  
Stable Family ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
Family Groups

Kin recognition is a phenomenon with an important function in maintaining cohesive social groups in animals. Several studies have examined parent–offspring recognition in species with direct parental care. Few studies have, however, explored parent–offspring recognition in animals that, at best, only show apparent indirect parental care, such as some reptiles. In this study, we investigated reciprocal parent–offspring recognition in the fossorial amphisbaenian Trogonophis wiegmanni, a viviparous species that shows potential stable ‘family groups’ in the form of parent-offspring long-term associations. We examined whether adult males and females could discriminate via chemical cues between familiar juveniles which associate with them within their family groups, and are potentially their offspring, to that of unfamiliar juveniles, and whether juveniles could discriminate between familiar adult males and females of their family group (probably their parents) and unfamiliar unrelated adults. We measured tongue flick behavior to study chemosensory responses to the scent of conspecifics. We found that adult female amphisbaenians, but not males, could discriminate between scents of familiar and unfamiliar juveniles. Juvenile amphisbaenians did not discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar adult females, but recognize familiar from unfamiliar males. We discuss our results of parent–offspring recognition according to its potential social function in an ecological fossorial context where visibility is limited and chemosensory kin recognition may contribute to the establishment of stable family groups.

scholarly journals Male relatedness and familiarity are required to modulate male-induced harm to females in Drosophila

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1860) ◽  
pp. 20170441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Le Page ◽  
Irem Sepil ◽  
Ewan Flintham ◽  
Tommaso Pizzari ◽  
Pau Carazo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Potential Role ◽  
Genetic Relatedness ◽  
Inclusive Fitness ◽  
Kin Recognition ◽  
Female Reproduction ◽  
Fitness Effects ◽  
Inclusive Fitness Theory ◽  
Indirect Fitness ◽  
Female Lifespan

Males compete over mating and fertilization, and often harm females in the process. Inclusive fitness theory predicts that increasing relatedness within groups of males may relax competition and discourage male harm of females as males gain indirect benefits. Recent studies in Drosophila melanogaster are consistent with these predictions, and have found that within-group male relatedness increases female fitness, though others have found no effects. Importantly, these studies did not fully disentangle male genetic relatedness from larval familiarity, so the extent to which modulation of harm to females is explained by male familiarity remains unclear. Here we performed a fully factorial design, isolating the effects of male relatedness and larval familiarity on female harm. While we found no differences in male courtship or aggression, there was a significant interaction between male genetic relatedness and familiarity on female reproduction and survival. Relatedness among males increased female lifespan, reproductive lifespan and overall reproductive success, but only when males were familiar. By showing that both male relatedness and larval familiarity are required to modulate female harm, these findings reconcile previous studies, shedding light on the potential role of indirect fitness effects on sexual conflict and the mechanisms underpinning kin recognition in fly populations.

scholarly journals Paternal signature in kin recognition cues of a social insect: concealed in juveniles, revealed in adults

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1793) ◽  
pp. 20141236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janine W. Y. Wong ◽  
Joël Meunier ◽  
Christophe Lucas ◽  
Mathias Kölliker
Keyword(s):  
Information Content ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Kin Recognition ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Cuticular Hydrocarbon ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Adult Offspring ◽  
Forficula Auricularia ◽  
Eusocial Insects ◽  
The One

Kin recognition is a key mechanism to direct social behaviours towards related individuals or avoid inbreeding depression. In insects, recognition is generally mediated by cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) compounds, which are partly inherited from parents. However, in social insects, potential nepotistic conflicts between group members from different patrilines are predicted to select against the expression of patriline-specific signatures in CHC profiles. Whereas this key prediction in the evolution of insect signalling received empirical support in eusocial insects, it remains unclear whether it can be generalized beyond eusociality to less-derived forms of social life. Here, we addressed this issue by manipulating the number of fathers siring clutches tended by females of the European earwig, Forficula auricularia , analysing the CHC profiles of the resulting juvenile and adult offspring, and using discriminant analysis to estimate the information content of CHC with respect to the maternal and paternal origin of individuals. As predicted, if paternally inherited cues are concealed during family life, increases in mating number had no effect on information content of CHC profiles among earwig juveniles, but significantly decreased the one among adult offspring. We suggest that age-dependent expression of patriline-specific cues evolved to limit the risks of nepotism as family-living juveniles and favour sibling-mating avoidance as group-living adults. These results highlight the role of parental care and social life in the evolution of chemical communication and recognition cues.

Does low fecundity reflect kin recognition and inbreeding avoidance in the mandarin vole (Microtus mandarinus)?

2002 ◽  
Vol 80 (12) ◽  
pp. 2150-2155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tai Fadao ◽  
Sun Ruyong ◽  
Wang Tingzheng
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Relatedness ◽  
Kin Recognition ◽  
Inbreeding Avoidance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Phenotype Matching ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Rearing Conditions ◽  
Vaginal Cytology ◽  
Cross Fostering ◽  
Mandarin Vole

The effects of kin recognition on estrus and breeding in mandarin voles (Microtus mandarinus) were investigated in the laboratory using a cross-fostering method. Nonsiblings reared apart produced significantly more litters than siblings or nonsiblings reared together. These results may support the hypothesis that familiarity through association before weaning plays an important role in kin recognition. On the other hand, nonsiblings reared apart produced significantly more litters than siblings reared apart. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in number of litters between siblings reared apart and siblings reared together. These observations show that phenotype-matching mechanisms of kin recognition may operate in conjunction with familiarity in kin recognition in this species. Through observing the vaginal cytology of female mandarin voles paired with different males in different rearing conditions, it was found that females paired with familiar males (through association before weaning) produced significantly fewer estrous smears than females paired with unfamiliar males (reared by different parents before weaning), regardless of genetic relatedness. Thus, using vaginal cytology as an indicator of estrus, it was found that familiarity through association before weaning may retard the first estrus of female mandarin voles.

scholarly journals Emergent myxobacterial behaviors arise from reversal suppression induced by kin contacts

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajesh Balagam ◽  
Pengbo Cao ◽  
Govind P Sah ◽  
Zhaoyang A Zhang ◽  
Daniel Wall ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Kin Recognition ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Collective Behaviors ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Chemosensory Pathway ◽  
Cellular Slime ◽  
Physical Interactions ◽  
Mechanistic Basis ◽  
Emergent Behaviors

A wide range of biological systems - from microbial swarms to bird flocks, display emergent behaviors driven by coordinated movement of individuals. To this end, individual organisms interact by recognizing their kin and adjusting their motility based on others around them. However, even in the best-studied systems, the mechanistic basis of the interplay between kin recognition and motility coordination is not understood. Here, using a combination of experiments and mathematical modeling, we uncover the mechanism of an emergent social behavior in Myxococcus xanthus. By overexpressing the cell surface kin recognition receptors, TraA and TraB, large numbers of cells adhere to one another and form organized macroscopic circular aggregates that spin clockwise or counterclockwise. Mechanistically, TraAB adhesion results in sustained cell-cell contacts that signal the Frz chemosensory pathway. In turn, cell reversals are suppressed and circular aggregates form as the result of cells' ability to follow cellular slime trails. Furthermore, our in-silico simulations demonstrate a remarkable ability to predict self-organization patterns when phenotypically distinct strains are mixed. Therefore, this work provides key mechanistic insights into M. xanthus social interactions and demonstrates how social recognition transforms physical interactions into emergent collective behaviors.

scholarly journals Same father, same face: deep-learning reveals paternally-derived signalling of kinship in a wild primate

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie JE Charpentier ◽  
Mélanie Harté ◽  
Clémence Poirotte ◽  
Jade Meric de Bellefon ◽  
Benjamin Laubi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Genetic Relatedness ◽  
Kin Recognition ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Individual Health Status ◽  
Facial Similarity ◽  
Animal Faces ◽  
Term Data

ABSTRACTAnimal faces convey important information such as individual health status1 or identity2,3. Human and nonhuman primates rely on highly heritable facial traits4,5 to recognize their kin6–8. However, whether these facial traits have evolved for this specific function of kin recognition remains unknown. We present the first unambiguous evidence that inter-individual facial similarity has been selected to signal kinship using a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence approach based on deep neural networks and long-term data on a natural population of nonhuman primates. The typical matrilineal society of mandrills, is characterized by an extreme male’s reproductive skew with one male generally siring the large majority of offspring born into the different matrilines each year9. Philopatric females are raised and live throughout their lives with familiar maternal half-sisters (MHS) but because of male’s reproductive monopolization, they also live with unfamiliar paternal half-sisters (PHS). Because kin selection predicts differentiated interactions with kin rather than nonkin10 and that PHS largely outnumber MHS in a mandrills’ social group, natural selection should favour mechanisms to recognize PHS. Here, we first show that PHS socially interact with each other as much as MHS do, both more than nonkin. Second, using artificial intelligence trained to recognize individual mandrills from a database of 16k portrait pictures, we demonstrate that facial similarity increases with genetic relatedness. However, PHS resemble more to each other than MHS do, despite both kin categories sharing similar degrees of genetic relatedness. We propose genomic imprinting as a plausible genetic mechanism to explain paternally-derived facial similarity among PHS selected to improve kin recognition. This study further highlights the potential of artificial intelligence to study evolutionary mechanisms driving variation between phenotypes.

scholarly journals GCalignR: An R package for aligning Gas-Chromatography data

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meinolf Ottensmann ◽  
Martin A. Stoffel ◽  
Hazel J. Nichols ◽  
Joseph I. Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Gas Chromatography ◽  
Animal Communication ◽  
Kin Recognition ◽  
R Package ◽  
Error Rates ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Alignment Error ◽  
Mass Spectral ◽  
Fur Seals ◽  
The Impact

AbstractChemical cues are arguably the most fundamental means of animal communication and play an important role in mate choice and kin recognition. Consequently, gas chromatography (GC) in combination with either mass spectrometry (MS) or flame ionisation detection (FID) are commonly used to characterise complex chemical samples. Both GC-FID and GC-MS generate chromatograms comprising peaks that are separated according to their retention times and which represent different substances. Across chromatograms of different samples, homologous substances are expected to elute at similar retention times. However, random and often unavoidable experimental variation introduces noise, making the alignment of homologous peaks challenging, particularly with GC-FID data where mass spectral data are lacking. Here we presentGCalignR, a user-friendly R package for aligning GC-FID data based on retention times. The package also implements dynamic visualisations to facilitate inspection and fine-tuning of the resulting alignments, and can be integrated within a broader workflow in R to facilitate downstream multivariate analyses. We demonstrate an example workflow using empirical data from Antarctic fur seals and explore the impact of user-defined parameter values by calculating alignment error rates for multiple datasets. The resulting alignments had low error rates for most of the explored parameter space and we could also show thatGCalignRperformed equally well or better than other available software. We hope thatGCalignRwill help to simplify the processing of chemical datasets and improve the standardization and reproducibility of chemical analyses in studies of animal chemical communication and related fields.

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