生物谷报道：中国科学院动物研究所张健旭副研究员一项新的研究发现雄小鼠越闻猫尿，越能使其自身气味对雌性产生诱惑。过去的诸多研究发现猫的气味典型地引起小鼠的惊慌或逃逸。科学家们预计受到胁迫的正常小鼠会减少其性爱生活。为了观察一缕猫味是否可以作为小鼠的驱避剂赶走害鼠，研究人员将小鼠暴露给猫尿8周。没想到，2个月的猫的气味的暴露并没有引起鼠的畏缩，反而，导致了进攻性的鼠。这些鼠的攻击力比平行暴露给兔子尿液的鼠高2倍。之前，普遍认为天敌的存在总是对其猎物有负面影响，“但是我们的发现说明底剂量或适度剂量的捕食压力对猎物可能有正面作用，”研究人员张健旭说，张是中国科学院动物研究所信息素研究人员。研究人员认为，雌鼠喜欢进攻性雄鼠，同时，经常暴露给猫尿的鼠类可能类似那些能在经常受到天敌威胁而存活下来的强壮鼠。这些发现可能在改善圈养动物的生活方面有用，张说。动物园可以用一点天敌的气味来刺激动物，以丰化动物的环境或行为。
这篇论文是张健旭副研究员和海外合作者孙立新教授， Milos Novotny教授等合作完成的。（生物谷www.bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Journal of Ethology，Volume 26, Number 2，279-286，Jian-Xu Zhang，Milos V. Novotny
Chronic exposure of cat odor enhances aggression, urinary attractiveness and sex pheromones of mice
Jian-Xu Zhang1, 3 , Lixing Sun2, Kevin E. Bruce3 and Milos V. Novotny3
(1) State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insects and Rodents in Agriculture, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Datunlu RD, Beijing, 100101, China
(2) Department of Biological Sciences, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, WA 98926-7537, USA
(3) Institute for Pheromone Research and Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
Received: 18 May 2007 Accepted: 31 July 2007 Published online: 14 September 2007
Abstract To test whether predator odor exposure negatively affects the behavior of prey, we exposed three groups of male house mice (Mus musculus) to the odors of cat (Felis catus) urine, rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) urine and water (control), respectively, for consecutive 58 days and investigated how the treatments affected the response, aggressiveness, dominance, urinary attractiveness to females and pheromone composition of male mice. Compared to mice exposed to rabbit urine or water, those exposed to cat odor did not show any response habituation to the cat odor and became more aggressive, increased mark urine production and were more attractive to females when the latter were tested with their urine. Furthermore, gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry analysis revealed coincident elevations of the well-known male pheromones, E,E-α-farnesene, E-β-farnesene, R,R-dehydro-exo-brevicomin or S-2-sec-butyl-dihydrothiazole. In addition, rabbit urine exposure increased urinary attractiveness to females and pheromonal levels of the males in comparison with the mice exposed to water. This could be related to olfactory enrichment of heterospecific chemosignals, suggesting that predator odors were more beneficial. In light of these anti-intuitional findings in the chemical interaction between cats and mice, we conclude that predator odor affects prey more profoundly than previously believed and that its impact may not always be negative.
