1. The marine gastropods Acmaea (Collisella) limatula and Acmaea (Notoacmea) scutum respond to distant predatory starfish (i.e. to starfish scent) by moving up a vertical surface. 2. The distance chemoreceptors that mediate this avoidance behaviour are located on the mantle margin. Heat cauterization of the limpets' mantle margin eliminates their responsiveness to Pisaster ochraceus scent, whil...

Scent stations are assumed to be a simple and economical method to index furbearer populations, but recent literature challenges the reliability of this technique. We examined several variables that could affect visitation rates of 2 commonly indexed species. Raccoon (Procyon lotor) and bobcat (Felis rufus) visitation rates of scent stations were monitored on the Hatchie National Wildlife Refug...

Floral scent is an important part of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from plants, and is influenced by many environmental and endogenous factors. To investigate the influence of temperature on the emission of the floral scent of Osmanthus fragrans, the number of chemical compounds and their relative release amounts from four cultivars of O. fragrans under different temperature treatme...

Zoophilous flowers often transmit olfactory signals to attract pollinators. In plants with unisexual flowers, such signals are usually similar between the sexes because attraction of the same animal to both male and female flowers is essential for conspecific pollen transfer. Here, we present a remarkable example of sexual dimorphism in floral signal observed in reproductively highly specialize...

The chemical composition of floral scents has been extensively investigated for hundreds of years because of the commercial value of floral volatiles in perfumery. More recently, several ecological studies have examined the roles of floral scent in the biology of the plant. However, in contrast to the chemical emphasis of the perfumers and the organismal emphasis of the ecologists, until recent...

Floral scent, which is determined by a complex mixture of low molecular weight volatile molecules, plays a major role in the plant's life cycle. Phenylpropanoid volatiles are the main determinants of floral scent in petunia (Petunia hybrida). A screen using virus-induced gene silencing for regulators of scent production in petunia flowers yielded a novel R2R3-MYB-like regulatory factor of pheny...

Floral scent emission rate and composition of purple and white flower color morphs of Hesperis matronalis (Brassicaceae) were determined for two populations and, for each, at two times of day using dynamic headspace collection and GC-MS. The floral volatile compounds identified for this species fell into two main categories, terpenoids and aromatics. Principal component analysis of 30 compounds...

Evidence suggests that female sexual preferences change across the menstrual cycle. Women's extra-pair copulations tend to occur in their most fertile period, whereas their intra-pair copulations tend to be more evenly spread out across the cycle. This pattern is consistent with women preferentially seeking men who evidence phenotypic markers of genetic benefits just before and during ovulation...