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CORRECT MIXTURES REQUIRED. “In male moths, interneurons will only initiate a behavioural response if the right combination of glomeruli are activated, indicating all pheromone components are present in the right ratios, and there are no pheromone molecules characteristic of other species.” View in LinkedIn

DETECTION BY CHEMORECEPTORS. “Across the animal kingdom, as a rule, pheromones are detected by chemoreceptors of the olfactory system(s). In both insects and vertebrates, olfactory sensory neurons which carry the same chemoreceptor converge on the same glomerulus.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

REPRODUCTIVE ISOLATION. “During speciation, changes in sex pheromones commonly form one basis of pre-mating isolation. This may explain the chemosignal differences in major urinary proteins and androgen binding proteins in Mus musculus subspecies in hybrid zones.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

ADAPTED FOR SITUATION. “Hyena anal gland secretions contain relatively involatile high molecular weight molecules for long lasting marks for territory marking. Underwater, pheromones can be small as the unusual amino acid L-kynurenine used by masu salmon as a female sex pheromone or as large as proteins, if charged and soluble. For example, the sex pheromones of the sea slug Aplysia are the proteins attractin, enticin, seductin, and temptin.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

FUNCTIONAL MODIFICATIONS. “The molecules used by a given kind of animal can often be understood in terms of function, habitat, likely evolution, and phylogenetic history. For example, ant alarm pheromones are often related to that species’ venoms, and are small volatile molecules such as formic acid (MW 46), quick to reach fellow nestmates and to rapidly disperse when the alert is over.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

EVOLUTION IS SOURCE AGNOSTIC. “A very wide range of molecules are used as pheromones, covering every chemical dimension of structure, functional group, size and combination, and limited only by the range of molecules organisms can produce or obtain. This range reflects the ways that molecules evolve into pheromone signals. Any molecule can potentially evolve into a pheromone.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

OUTSOURCED EXUDATES. “Pheromones may also be produced by the activity of bacterial symbionts as in the case of, for example, guaiacol (2-methyoxyphenol), which affects phase-change in Locusta migratoria.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

MODIFIED EXUDATES. “In some species, pheromones are derived or modified from other sources: tiger moth caterpillars sequester poisons from their milkweed food plants and as adults, males metabolise some of these pyrrolizidine alkaloid poisons into volatile pheromones, attractive to females and indicative of the size of poison gift they will transfer along with sperm at mating. Tropical euglossine orchid bee males collect their pheromones as a ‘take-away’ from a species-specific set of orchid flowers.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

FUTURE PEST CONTROLS. “So far, pest moths and beetles have been the main targets. In the future, nematodes and insect vectors of disease might be managed by their pheromones. Lampreys which ravage Great Lake fisheries might soon be lured into traps by their pheromones. Rodent pheromones might one day replace toxic rodenticides.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn