Mouse scent marking

Early studies described the function of male mouse urinary odour cues as aggression-promoting or aversive to other males. However, the response to a scent depends on a wide range of different factors and scent marks are generally deposited as a broadcast signal that will be encountered by many different individuals (Hurst, 2004). Thus it is more appropriate to consider the information provided by male scents as signals that advertise specific aspects of a male s quality or competitive ability. 

Laboratory mice have been used as the model rodent to demonstrate the potential of aversive social odors to manage populations. Chemical constituents in the urine of dominant male mice have been shown to inhibit the exploratory behaviour of subordinate mice in laboratory-based arena studies. Two constituents, a and P-famesene, have been patented as mouse repellents (Novotny, Harvey Jemiolo, 1993). However, we do not know what effect these chemicals have on free-living rodent populations, where dominance hierarchies may not always exist. The scent marks left by dominant male rats within family groups appear to act not so much as warning signals for strange rats, but as aids to orientation (Lund, 1975). In the context of controlling rat populations, social odors are unlikely to produce the immediate reduction in numbers required to control a troublesome rat... 

Saliva and oral marking. The use of saliva and licking or biting in scent-marking occurs in the yellow footed marsupial mouse, A. flavipes, the crest-tailed marsupial mouse, Dasycercus cristicauda (Ewer, 1968),... 

Social aspects of scent-marking in the fat-tailed marsupial mouse. 

In isolated male mice, own odor regulates the amount of urine deposited in marking. If it is present, they mark less, while clean surfaces and also other males urine trigger more frequent marking (Daumae and Kimura, 1986). In our laboratory experiments, students are impressed by how a mouse stops at a clean tile in the middle of a soiled open field. A scent-the-habitat function for odors from both sexes has been assumed for the gland secretions in the brushtail possum, Trichosurus vulpecula, since no sex differences in chemical composition were found (Woolhouse etal., 1994). 

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