Scent marking urinary

Probst B. (1990). Female urinary chemosignals stimulate scent marking behaviour in male Mongolian Gerbils. In Chemical Signals in Vertebrates 5 (MacDonald D., Muller-Schwarze D. and Natynczuk S.E., eds.). University Press, Oxford, pp. 213-216. 

Desjardins C, Maruniak JA, Bronson FH (1973) Social rank in house mice Differentiation revealed by ultraviolet visualization of urinary marking patterns. Science 182 939-941 Humphries RE, Robertson DHL, Beynon RJ, Hurst JL (1999) Unraveling the chemical basis of competitive scent marking in house mice. Anim Behav 58 1177-1190 Hurst JL (1990a) Urine marking in populations of wild house mice Mus domesticus Rutty. I. 

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. 

We have described how the quality of male scent marks differs between dominants and subordinates accordingly the response of the male receiver differs depending on the type of male mark encountered. If a male competitor attempts to put down urine marks in a pattern that resembles that of a dominant male, or the urinary scent mark is of a similar quality to that of a dominant rather than a subordinate male, then the resident dominant male is more likely to increase his level of aggression by contrast, a subordinate male is likely to flee on encountering the scent mark owner (Jones and Nowell, 1973a Hurst,... 

Male hamsters discriminate between female vaginal secretions deposited 24h apart (Johnston Schmidt 1979) and meadow voles respond more strongly to fresh compared to one day old anogenital scents (Ferkin, Burda, O Connor Lee 1995), but age differences are not necessary for either hamsters (Johnston et al 1995) or meadow voles (Johnston et al. 1997b) to discriminate between scent marks and counter-marks if these physically overlap, at least in part. However, our preliminary experiments with wild house mice suggest that an age difference in scents is necessary for female mice to discriminate between the urinary scent marks and counter-marks of competing males. We found that females discriminated in... 

---