Giant pandas use odor cues to discriminate kin from nonkin  

作　　者：Oranit GILAD Ronald R. SWAISGOOD Megan A. OWEN Xiaoping ZHOU 

机构地区：[1]Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA [2]Institute for Conservation Research, San Diego Zoo Global, Escondido, CA 92027, USA [3]China Research and Conservation Center for the Giant Panda, Wolong, Sichuan, 623006, China

出　　处：《Current Zoology》2016年第4期333-336,共4页动物学报（英文版）

摘　　要：Sociality is an important factor in both the mechanism and function of kin recognition, yet it is little explored in solitary species. While there may be future opportunities for nepotistic functions of kin discrimination among solitary species, the ability to discriminate kin from nonkin may still have important roles in social regulation. The solitary giant panda Ailuropoda melanoleuca offers a good model system to explore kin discrimination in a solitary mammal. As kin discrimination in many other mammals is olfactorily mediated, we investigated whether giant pandas are able to discriminate odor cues from daughters even after months and years of separation. Our results indicate that giant pandas are capable of discriminating between kin and nonkin using odor cues available in urine and body odor. Daughters preferentially investigated the odors of unrelated adult female pandas over the odors of their mothers, and mothers spent more time investigating the odors of unrelated age- matched female pandas over those from their daughters. Because these studies were conducted months or years after the mother-daughter period of dependency ended, it is still unclear what mechanism is used for recognition. Long-term olfactory memories and phenotype matching should both be considered, and further studies are required for such determination.

关 键 词：chemical communication giant panda kin discrimination. 

分 类 号：Q[生物学]