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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

GLANDULAR EXUDATES. “Pheromones are typically secreted by specialized glands or tissues. For example, female moths have a pheromone gland at the end of their abdomen. Rodents have a wide variety of skin glands as well as large and small pheromone molecules delivered in their urine.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

CUSTOMIZATION COSTS. “However, the species-specificity of sex pheromones increases costs as pheromone control has to be developed for each pest. Despite these challenges for commercialization, more than 10 million hectares are protected annually using pheromones.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

MOUSE TEAR GLAND MARKER. “Darcin provides a good example of the distinction between pheromones and individual odours. Darcin is secreted in the urine that dominant male mice use to mark territory signposts. Females, attracted by volatile urine pheromones, sniff the urine into their second nose, the vomeronasal organ (VNO), where darcin, an involatile pheromone, is detected. Darcin prompts the female to remember the location of the signpost and also the individual odour of the male. She will seek out the male territory owner and mate with him, recognizing him by his individual odour.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

PEST CONTROL. “Pheromones have fulfilled their early promise for non-toxic pest control. For example, with sufficient synthetic female sex pheromone released into an apple orchard, male codling moths cannot find the real females to fertilize their eggs (so there are fewer caterpillars, which cause the damage). In contrast to broadly toxic pesticides, the specificity of non-toxic sex pheromones means that environmental impacts are minimised — predators such as spiders and carabid beetles are left unaffected.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

CASTRATI DEFICIENT. “Since the production of many male pheromones in mammals is under androgen hormone control, the chemical profiles of intact and castrated males could also be compared. This ‘subtractive approach’ was used recently to track down candidate molecules for a male goat pheromone. Similar approaches have also been used to identify large molecule pheromones in male mice, such as the endocrine-gland-secreting peptide 1 (ESP1) from the tear gland and the major urinary protein (MUP20), known as darcin.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

TROJAN HORSES. “In some species, hormones or other molecules are transferred along with the male’s sperm to the female when mating, causing females to reject other males. These molecules include prostaglandins in the semen of the red-sided garter snake Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis and sex peptides in the semen of D. melanogaster.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

COMPLEX SOUP OF SIGNALS. “In mammals, which have individual odour profiles easily as complex as social insect colony odours, early researchers despaired of finding pheromones. GC analysis of mammal secretions from skin glands showed they contained hundreds of molecules, with large variations in composition between different individuals of the same species.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

SOCIAL CASTE TRIGGERS. “Honeybee larvae destined to be queens are fed exclusively on royal jelly, which contains a glycoprotein allohormone pheromone, royalactin. This acts on a fat body signaling cascade, resulting in raised juvenile hormone levels. When development is complete, queens are very different from workers: they are larger, have different neural circuits and behaviours, have functioning reproductive systems, and will live ten times as long.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn