Anal gland secretions beaver

Sun, L. and Muller-Schwarze, D. (1998) Anal gland secretion codes for family membership in the beaver. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 44, 199-208. 

Recently, Rosell and Sundsdal [78] tentatively identified 21 of the 43 constituents present in 96 scent marks deposited directly on snow or ice mounds by the Eurasian beaver, C. fiber. In this study, a higher final oven temperature was employed and several steroids were eluted from the capillary column. Because the main focus of this study was to determine whether the beaver uses castoreum and/or anal gland secretion for scent marking and not the full chem-... 

The anal gland secretion of beaver, C. canadensis, differs between the sexes (Gr0nneberg, 1978-79). The male grey duiker, Sylvicapra grimmia, has more 2-heptanone and 2-nonadecanone in its preorbital secretion than the female. Two thiazoles (2-isobutyl-1,3-thiazole and 2-isobutyl-4,5-dihydro-l,3-thiazole) and an epoxy ketone (3,4-epoxy-2-dodecanone) are also more abundant in the male s secretion. Correlated with these chemical differences is the fact that only males scent mark with the preorbital gland (Burger etal., 1990). 

Mountain beaver, Aplodontia rufa, a primitive rodent from northwestern North America, fed less from food bowls if the rim was scented with mink anal gland secretion, or urine from mink, bobcat, coyote, or dog. The control odors butyric acid or guinea pig urine had no effect (Epple et fl/., 1993). Mountain beaver did not respond significantly to mustelid sulfur compounds though, yet these deter other small mammals (Epple etal, 1993). 

Gr0nneberg, T. 0. (1978-79). Analysis of a wax ester fraction from anal gland secretion of beaver [Castorfiber) by chemical ionization mass spectrometiy. Chemical Scripta 13, 56-58. 

Grpnneberg, T. 0. and Lee, T. (1984). Lipids of the anal gland secretion of beaver [Castor... 

Schulte, B. A., Millier-Schwarze, D., and Sun, L. (1995). Using anal gland secretion to determine sex in beaver. Jottmfll of Wildlife Management 59,614-618. 

Beavers live in family units that are usually composed of a mated pair, yearlings, and kits. They occupy and defend territories (Schulte, 1993). Beavers rely heavily on chemical signals for social interaction and recognition. They use anal gland secretion (AGS) and castoreum to communicate many types of information, including family membership, kinship, sex, individuality, and territoriality (Svendsen, 1980 Sun and Miiller-Schwarze, 1997 Schulte, 1998). To do these, they build scent mounds on the bank, within 2 meters from the water, in areas of high activity around their territory, and then apply castoreum and/or AGS to the top (Svendsen, 1978, 1980 Rosell and Nolet, 1997 Rosell and Sundsdal, 2001). 

Rosell, F., and Sun, L., 1999, Use of anal gland secretion to distinguish the two beaver species Castor canadensis and C. fiber, Wild. Biol 5 119-123. 

I am not aware of any other systematic attempt to investigate the complete repertoire of individually distinctive odors within a species, although more than one source of such cues has often been studied. For example, experiments with the dwarf mongoose suggest that the anal gland secretion is individually distinctive whereas the cheek gland secretion is not (Gorman, 1976 Rasa, 1973). Similarly, in both black-tailed dear and the North American beaver, one source of odor has been shown to be individually distinctive but other secretions are not (Muller-Schwarze, 1974 MUller-Schwarze, 1999). It is... 

Our experimental system is chemical communication in beaver Castor canadensis). Beaver communicate and mark their territory by means of two secretions, castoreum and anal gland secretion. These two secretions convey different aspects of territorial and individual identity information to conspecifics (for details, see Sun and Muller-Schwarze, this volume). The active chemical components of castoreum manifest several features whose adaptiveness needs to be explained. These features include ) Several or even dozens of compounds comprise a signal (Muller-Schwarze et al., 1986 Schulte et al. 1994). 2) The intensity of the response increases with the number of compounds (Schulte et al., 1994). 3) Signals are redundant Different compounds can be substituted for one another while the response remains the same (Mtiller-Schwarze and Houlihan 1991). 4) Response quality and... 

In addition, the anal gland secretion can code for family membership (Sun 1996). This is because beavers live in a closed family unit, which typically consists of an adult pair and their offspring of the current and previous year. Therefore, the relatedness between family members is 0.5 except between the two adults. Because anal gland secretion profiles of related individuals are more similar than those of non-related individuals and... 

The total number of observation nights was 162 (castoreum 78 anal gland secretion 84). Beavers responded (any kind of alteration to the experimental scent mounds) to male castoreum in 31 % of the cases, and to female castoreum in 26 %. The difference was not significant = 0.205, d.f. = 1, P > 0.50). Nor did we find that beavers showed any difference in response to male and female anal gland secretion samples (male 46% female 39%, = 0.347, d.f. = 1, P > 0.50). To examine any likely subtle differences in... 

Lederer (1946, 1950) identified 45 of over 100 compounds isolated from castoreum, but was not clear on the species of beaver used. Nitrogen-containing compounds were identified by Maurer and Ohloff (1976). The only chemical study of anal gland secretion is that of Gr nneberg (1978/79). 

Mean number of land visits (+ SEM) by all members of beaver colonies in response to odor samples. Ordinate Number of visits. Base Number of visits prior to any odor application. C Castor-eum A Anal gland secretion D Distillate R Residue. 

Bacterial activity has been shown to be responsible for volatile organic compounds in, among many others, the exocrine secretions of beavers (see above), the anal sacs of the red fox, Vulpes vulpes, and Hon, Panthera leo [85], and the inguinal pouch of the rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculus [86]. No bacteria were, however, found in the anal gland of the European mole, T. europaea [87]. 

---