Scent marking status advertisement

Chemical cues are important to advertise one s sex and to attract the opposite sex as the first step in sexual behavior. Other functions of sexual signals are to signal current sexual status and to alter the behavior of the potential partner(s) via courtship or scent marking to facilitate mating. Typically, the odor of the opposite sex is attractive, at least in the breeding season. (Priming pheromones are covered separately in Chapter 8.)... 

Owner advantage in contests with intruders depends on the identification of the owner, not as an individual (see below) but as the owner of the territory. Elsewhere I have argued that the function of scent marking in territories is to advertise the owner s status and thus to reduce the cost of territory defence (Gosling, 1982). If this is true then the proper context for scent marking is competitor assessment theory which is an offshoot of the ideas about animal contests mentioned in the previous section. Briefly, animals would be expected to adjust their behaviour to the probability and benefits of winning a contest, and the costs of... 

Cervus elaphus, where the signal is energetically very expensive to produce (Clutton-Brock and Albon, 1979). Scent marking in territories may have evolved as a form of status advertisement because it takes some time to comprehensively mark a territory (one week for a newly arrived Thomson s gazelle male Walther, 1978a) and, since a male that has done this must have successfully defended the territory, it must actually be the owner. The historical element in scent marking thus makes it uniquely cheat-proof. 

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