News Release

Scent signals stop incest in lemurs

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMC (BioMed Central)

Chemical identifiers secreted from the genital glands of lemurs, allow them to avoid incest and also to engage in nepotism. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology have identified the smells used by both male and female ring-tailed lemurs to advertize their family ties.

Christine Drea from Duke University, North Carolina, USA, worked with Marylène Boulet and Marie Charpentier from the same university to study the primate's scent secretions. She said, "We sampled 17 sexually mature females throughout the year, during the extended nonbreeding season and the relatively limited breeding season, and compared this information with data on 19 males that was taken from a previous study. By integrating genetic and biochemical data, we provide the first molecular evidence that the scent secretions expressed by the genital glands of male and female lemurs contain markers of relatedness within and between the sexes."

The scents released during the competitive breeding season were more similar between relatives than nonrelatives, leading the researchers to speculate that these markers encode information that is particularly relevant to avoid inbreeding with unfamiliar kin. The weaker signals of genetic relatedness existing throughout the year might also be useful in facilitating nepotism between family members. According to Drea, "Consistent with the scent secretions of other mammals, the genital secretions of lemurs are extremely complex and encode multiple messages. It will be interesting to find out what other messages are being transmitted by this fascinating form of communication".

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Notes to Editors:

1. Decoding an olfactory mechanism of kin recognition and inbreeding avoidance in a primate
Marylene Boulet, Marie JE Charpentier and Christine M Drea
BMC Evolutionary Biology (in press)

During embargo, article available here: http://www.biomedcentral.com/imedia/6181859562550531_article.pdf?random=428724

After the embargo, article available at journal website: http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcevolbiol/

Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.

Article citation and URL available on request at press@biomedcentral.com on the day of publication

2. Pictures of lemurs are available here:

A scent-marking lemur http://www.biomedcentral.com/graphics/email/images/lemur1.jpg

A female with young http://www.biomedcentral.com/graphics/email/images/lemur2.jpg

3. BMC Evolutionary Biology is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in all aspects of molecular and non-molecular evolution of all organisms, as well as phylogenetics and palaeontology. BMC Evolutionary Biology (ISSN 1471-2148) is indexed/tracked/covered by PubMed, MEDLINE, BIOSIS, CAS, EMBASE, Scopus, Zoological Record, Current Contents, Thomson Reuters (ISI) and Google Scholar.

4. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.


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