Dietary constraints can preclude the expression of an honest chemical sexual signal

García‐Roa, Roberto; Sáiz, Jorge; Gómara, Belén; López, Pílar; Martı́n, José

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-06323-8

Cited by 20 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(54 reference statements)

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“…Darwinian selection may favour those chemical compounds or mixtures of compounds in chemical signals that enable animals to cope with such harsh signalling environments. On the other hand, as many chemical compounds are energy-consuming to produce or difficult to obtain (Clark, DeBano, & Moore, 1997;García-Roa, Sáiz, Gómara, López, & Martín, 2017;Kopena, Martín, López, & Herczeg, 2011;Rantala, Kortet, Kotiaho, Vainikka, & Suhonen, 2003;Rundle, Chenoweth, Doughty, & Blows, 2005), animals are unlikely to invest in costly signalling compounds when the benefit is economically low.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental conditions shape the chemical signal design of lizards

et al. 2017

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The signals that animals use to communicate often differ considerably among species. Part of this variation in signal design may derive from differential natural selection on signal efficacy; the ability of the signal to travel efficiently through the environment and attract the receiver's attention. For the visual and acoustic modalities, the effect of the physical environment on signal efficacy is a well‐studied selective force. Still, very little is known on its impact on chemical signals. Here, we took a broad, phylogenetic comparative approach to test for a relationship between animals' signal chemistry and properties of their natural environment. Our study focused on lizards from the Lacertidae family. We sampled 64 species across three continents and determined the lipophilic composition of their glandular signalling secretions using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. For each species, an array of environmental variables of high temporal and spatial resolution was obtained from climate databases. Species varied considerably in the overall richness (number of constituents) of their secretions, as well as in the relative contribution of the major chemical compound classes. Signal richness and the relative contribution of the respective compounds exhibited little evidence of phylogenetic relatedness, suggesting that chemical signals may change very rapidly. Neither insularity nor substrate use affected chemical signal composition, however, we found a strong statistical relationship between the chemistry of the lizards' secretions and aspects of the thermal and hydric environment they inhabit. Species from ‘xeric’ milieus contained high proportions of stable fatty acid esters and high molecular weight alcohols in their glandular secretions, which likely increase the persistence of secretion scent‐marks. In contrast, species inhabiting ‘mesic’ environments produced secretions of a high chemical richness comprising high levels of aldehydes and low molecular weight alcohols. This chemical mix probably creates a volatile‐rich signal that can be used for long‐distance airborne communication. We argue that the observed variation in signal design results from differential natural selection, optimizing signal efficacy under contrasting environmental conditions. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.12984/suppinfo is available for this article.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental conditions shape the chemical signal design of lizards

et al. 2017

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“…On the one hand, therefore, the results of both procedures reflect that supplementation modifies the chemical profiles. From an ecological point of view, it is very interesting because the “chemosensory perception”, and the subsequent behavioral response (Martín & López, ), by conspecific lizards could differ when receiving the chemical stimuli of both type of males (treated vs. control) (García‐Roa, Sáiz, et al., ; Kopena et al., ). However, on the other hand, when we focus on particular compounds, the statistical results and hence their interpretation of how these compounds change in both types of males are different depending on the procedure.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The TIC procedure can be useful to characterize and compare overall chemical profiles (Baeckens, García‐Roa, Martín, & Van Damme, ; Baeckens, Martín, García‐Roa, & van Damme, ; Baeckens, Martín, García‐Roa, Pafilis, et al., ; García‐Roa, Jara, López, Martín, & Pincheira‐Donoso, ), probably reflecting the “chemosensory perception” that a lizard may have of a secretion. Nevertheless, when the target is one or more particular compounds, it is advisable to ensure independence of these by means of including an internal standard, as has been performed in the SQ procedure (García‐Roa, Sáiz, et al., ). We are also aware that SQ procedure requires certain considerations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This dietary supplementation was conducted every 2 days during 3 weeks in June 2015. A similar procedure was followed during the same period of time for control lizards, but supplementing them with 5 μl of soybean oil alone (García‐Roa, Sáiz, Gómara, López, & Martín, ; Kopena et al., ). With this experiment, we aimed to assess whether the SQ procedure was able to detect quantitative changes in the relative abundances of certain compounds found in secretions produced by the effect of an external factor (dietary supplementation) exerted on individuals.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How to tackle chemical communication? Relative proportions versus semiquantitative determination of compounds in lizard chemical secretions

García‐Roa

Sáiz²,

Gómara³

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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Knowledge about chemical communication in some vertebrates is still relatively limited. Squamates are a glaring example of this, even when recent evidences indicate that scents are involved in social and sexual interactions. In lizards, where our understanding of chemical communication has considerably progressed in the last few years, many questions about chemical interactions remain unanswered. A potential reason for this is the inherent complexity and technical limitations that some methodologies embody when analyzing the compounds used to convey information. We provide here a straightforward procedure to analyze lizard chemical secretions based on gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry that uses an internal standard for the semiquantification of compounds. We compare the results of this method with those obtained by the traditional procedure of calculating relative proportions of compounds. For such purpose, we designed two experiments to investigate if these procedures allowed revealing changes in chemical secretions 1) when lizards received previously a vitamin dietary supplementation or 2) when the chemical secretions were exposed to high temperatures. Our results show that the procedure based on relative proportions is useful to describe the overall chemical profile, or changes in it, at population or species levels. On the other hand, the use of the procedure based on semiquantitative determination can be applied when the target of study is the variation in one or more particular compounds of the sample, as it has proved more accurate detecting quantitative variations in the secretions. This method would reveal new aspects produced by, for example, the effects of different physiological and climatic factors that the traditional method does not show.

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“…chemical richness) was analysed using a generalized linear model (Poisson distribution; Warton, Lyons, Stoklosa, & Ives, 2016). Lastly, and by the use of three separate ANOVAs, we specifically investigated interpopulation differences in the proportions of three compounds that have previously been demonstrated to be important for intraspecific communication in lacertid lizards: octadecanoic acid (Martín, Civantos, Amo, & López, 2007), oleic acid (Heathcote et al, 2014; López & Martín, 2012; Martín & López, 2010a) and α‐tocopherol (García‐Roa, Sáiz, Gómara, López, & Martín, 2017; Kopena et al, 2011; Martín & López, 2010b). We used Tukey's HSD multi‐comparison tests with Bonferroni corrections for all post hoc comparisons.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%