Chemoreception detection

Neotropical bats Desmodus rotundus, Artibeus literatus, and Phyllostomus discolor) are very sensitive to butanoic acid their detection threshold lies between 1.5 x 10 ° and 1.5 x 10 mol/1 (Schmidt, 1975). The short-tailed fruit bat Carollia perspicillata) has detection thresholds for 18 odorants ranging from 3.6 x 10 to 2.7 X 10 ° molecules/cm air. The animals were most sensitive to fruit-typical compounds such as ethyl butyrate (5.4 x 10 °molecules/cm ), w-pentyl acetate (2.8 X 10 °molecules/cm ), andlinalool(1.8 x 10 molecules/cm ), suggesting nutritional specialization of chemoreception (Laska, 1990). The bats increased their respiration rate from a basal rate of 2-4 Hz to as much as 12 Hz when confronted with an odor of high concentration. 

Placyk, J. S. and Graves, B. M. (2002). Prey detection by vomeronasal chemoreception in a plethodontid salamander. JoarnflZo/C/iem/cflZEcoZo 28,1017-1036. 

Smell, or the process of olfaction, is a chemical sense. Unlike the senses of hearing and vision which are stimulated by energetic phenomena, it depends upon the detection of airborne molecules coming in contact with specialized chemoreceptive cells. 

Specificity of chemoreception in predators generally is very pronounced. With the actinia Boloceroi des sp., valine is a powerful activator of the feeding response, whereas leucine has no action in this sense and isoleucine inhibits this behaviour (Lindstedt, 1971). A further example of stereospecificity in detection is furnished by the crustacean Homarus gammarus, which reacts to a complex mixture of laevo-rotatory amino acids, but shows no response to the same elements in their dextro-rotatory form (Mackie, 1973). 

Most of what is known about crustacean chemoreception is in the context of food detection and ingestion only very little is known in other behavioral contexts, such as predator avoidance, orientation in the habitat, interactions with symbiotic partners, or intraspecific communication by pheromones. From recent behavioral and neuroanatomical studies, two important concepts about pheromone reception in crustaceans have emerged ... 

The analysis of chemoreception in crustaceans has been focused almost exclusively on food-related chemicals. However, chemoreception is an important sensory channel in many other behavioral contexts such as social interactions and the assessment of danger from predation. Very likely different chemicals are important in these other contexts, but only recently progress was made in the identification of such chemicals and the sensilla detecting them. 

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