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Avian Egg Odour Encodes Information on Embryo Sex, Fertility and Development
Avian chemical communication is a rapidly emerging field, but has been hampered by a critical lack of information on volatile chemicals that communicate ecologically relevant information (semiochemicals). A possible, but as yet unexplored, function of olfaction and chemical communication in birds is...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4309571/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25629413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116345 |
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author | Webster, Ben Hayes, William Pike, Thomas W. |
author_facet | Webster, Ben Hayes, William Pike, Thomas W. |
author_sort | Webster, Ben |
collection | PubMed |
description | Avian chemical communication is a rapidly emerging field, but has been hampered by a critical lack of information on volatile chemicals that communicate ecologically relevant information (semiochemicals). A possible, but as yet unexplored, function of olfaction and chemical communication in birds is in parent-embryo and embryo-embryo communication. Communication between parents and developing embryos may act to mediate parental behaviour, while communication between embryos can control the synchronicity of hatching. Embryonic vocalisations and vibrations have been implicated as a means of communication during the later stages of development but in the early stages, before embryos are capable of independent movement and vocalisation, this is not possible. Here we show that volatiles emitted from developing eggs of Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) convey information on egg fertility, along with the sex and developmental status of the embryo. Specifically, egg volatiles changed over the course of incubation, differed between fertile and infertile eggs, and were predictive of embryo sex as early as day 1 of incubation. Egg odours therefore have the potential to facilitate parent-embryo and embryo-embryo interactions by allowing the assessment of key measures of embryonic development long before this is possible through other modalities. It also opens up the intriguing possibility that parents may be able to glean further relevant information from egg volatiles, such as the health, viability and heritage of embryos. By determining information conveyed by egg-derived volatiles, we hope to stimulate further investigation into the ecological role of egg odours. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4309571 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-43095712015-02-06 Avian Egg Odour Encodes Information on Embryo Sex, Fertility and Development Webster, Ben Hayes, William Pike, Thomas W. PLoS One Research Article Avian chemical communication is a rapidly emerging field, but has been hampered by a critical lack of information on volatile chemicals that communicate ecologically relevant information (semiochemicals). A possible, but as yet unexplored, function of olfaction and chemical communication in birds is in parent-embryo and embryo-embryo communication. Communication between parents and developing embryos may act to mediate parental behaviour, while communication between embryos can control the synchronicity of hatching. Embryonic vocalisations and vibrations have been implicated as a means of communication during the later stages of development but in the early stages, before embryos are capable of independent movement and vocalisation, this is not possible. Here we show that volatiles emitted from developing eggs of Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) convey information on egg fertility, along with the sex and developmental status of the embryo. Specifically, egg volatiles changed over the course of incubation, differed between fertile and infertile eggs, and were predictive of embryo sex as early as day 1 of incubation. Egg odours therefore have the potential to facilitate parent-embryo and embryo-embryo interactions by allowing the assessment of key measures of embryonic development long before this is possible through other modalities. It also opens up the intriguing possibility that parents may be able to glean further relevant information from egg volatiles, such as the health, viability and heritage of embryos. By determining information conveyed by egg-derived volatiles, we hope to stimulate further investigation into the ecological role of egg odours. Public Library of Science 2015-01-28 /pmc/articles/PMC4309571/ /pubmed/25629413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116345 Text en © 2015 Webster et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Webster, Ben Hayes, William Pike, Thomas W. Avian Egg Odour Encodes Information on Embryo Sex, Fertility and Development |
title | Avian Egg Odour Encodes Information on Embryo Sex, Fertility and Development |
title_full | Avian Egg Odour Encodes Information on Embryo Sex, Fertility and Development |
title_fullStr | Avian Egg Odour Encodes Information on Embryo Sex, Fertility and Development |
title_full_unstemmed | Avian Egg Odour Encodes Information on Embryo Sex, Fertility and Development |
title_short | Avian Egg Odour Encodes Information on Embryo Sex, Fertility and Development |
title_sort | avian egg odour encodes information on embryo sex, fertility and development |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4309571/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25629413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116345 |
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