Search results for "odor"

Affective matching of odors and facial expressions in infants: shifting patterns between 3 and 7 months.

2016

Recognition of emotional facial expressions is a crucial skill for adaptive behavior. Past research suggests that at 5 to 7 months of age, infants look longer to an unfamiliar dynamic angry/happy face which emotionally matches a vocal expression. This suggests that they can match stimulations of distinct modalities on their emotional content. In the present study, olfaction-vision matching abilities were assessed across different age groups (3, 5 and 7 months) using dynamic expressive faces (happy vs. disgusted) and distinct hedonic odor contexts (pleasant, unpleasant and control) in a visual-preference paradigm. At all ages the infants were biased toward the disgust faces. This visual bias…

Petrographic and geochemical characterization of the Middle‒Upper Jurassic Fe–Mn crusts and mineralizations from Monte Inici (north-western Sicily): …

2021

AbstractFe–Mn concretions and mineralizations, associated with condensed horizons and hardground, are significant archives in ancient carbonate rocks. Their petro-chemical study allows an assessment of the palaeoenvironmental context in which they were formed also connected to their biotic or abiotic origin. At the western side of the Monte Inici (Fornazzo section, north-western Sicily) a well exposed outcrop of condensed pelagic limestones (Rosso Ammonitico facies: Middle‒Upper Jurassic) is well-known and thoroughly studied. In this section, the base of the Rosso Ammonitico facies consists of a very condensed level rich in fossils with a variable thickness deposited from the early Bathonia…

A mitogenome sequence of an Equus hydruntinus specimen from Late Quaternary site of San Teodoro Cave (Sicily, Italy)

2020

Abstract Equus hydruntinus was a small equid that ranged from the Iberian Peninsula to Middle East. In Italy it has been considered present from the Middle Pleistocene to its extinction in the Middle-Late Holocene. E. hydruntinus shares plesiomorphic traits with other known Pleistocene equids. As a consequence, its classification has always been problematic. Genetic analyses on few fossil remains from Iran and Crimea have revealed that E. hydruntinus was more closely related to extant hemiones. To further investigate its systematic position, using target-enrichment capture and next-generation sequencing, we reconstructed a near complete mitogenome of a specimen from San Teodoro Cave from Si…

Cuticular hydrocarbon profiles differ between ant body parts: implications for communication and our understanding of CHC diffusion.

2020

Abstract Insect cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) serve as communication signals and protect against desiccation. They form complex blends of up to 150 different compounds. Due to differences in molecular packing, CHC classes differ in melting point. Communication is especially important in social insects like ants, which use CHCs to communicate within the colony and to recognize nestmates. Nestmate recognition models often assume a homogenous colony odor, where CHCs are collected, mixed, and redistributed in the postpharyngeal gland (PPG). Via diffusion, recognition cues should evenly spread over the body surface. Hence, CHC composition should be similar across body parts and in the PPG. To te…

Floral scent in a sexually deceptive Ophrys orchid: from headspace collections to solvent extractions

2018

Sexually deceptive orchid flowers use visual, tactile and olfactory cues of female insects in order to attract males of one or a few closely related species as pollinators. Ophrys L. is the most species-rich genus of sexually deceptive orchids in the Mediterranean Basin. Despite Ophrys pollinated by Andrena male bees use alkanes and mainly alkenes with specific double-bond positions as key signals that trigger pseudocopulatory behavior, some volatile organic compounds (VOCs) with low molecular weight were found as long-range attractants non-eliciting copulatory behavior. Since floral scents in Ophrys have been extensively studied by solvent extractions here we aimed to understand which flor…

Odor diversity decreases with inbreeding in the antHypoponera opacior

2016

Reduction in heterozygosity can lead to inbreeding depression. This loss of genetic variability especially affects diverse loci, such as immune genes or those encoding recognition cues. In social insects, nestmates are recognized by their odor, that is their cuticular hydrocarbon profile. Genes underlying hydrocarbon production are thought to be under balancing selection. If so, inbreeding should result in a loss of chemical diversity. We show here that cuticular hydrocarbon diversity decreases with inbreeding. Studying an ant with a facultative inbreeding lifestyle, we found inbred workers to exhibit both a lower number of hydrocarbons and less diverse, that is less evenly proportioned pro…

Olfactory cues and the value of information: voles interpret cues based on recent predator encounters

2018

Abstract Prey strategically respond to the risk of predation by varying their behavior while balancing the tradeoffs of food and safety. We present here an experiment that tests the way the same indirect cues of predation risk are interpreted by bank voles, Myodes glareolus, as the game changes through exposure to a caged weasel. Using optimal patch use, we asked wild-caught voles to rank the risk they perceived. We measured their response to olfactory cues in the form of weasel bedding, a sham control in the form of rabbit bedding, and an odor-free control. We repeated the interviews in a chronological order to test the change in response, i.e., the changes in the value of the information.…

Laccases of Botrytis cinerea

2017

Phenolic compounds significantly affect the color, odor and taste of wine. Due to their presumptive beneficial impact on human health, polyphenols in red wine have gained increasing public and scientific interest. Wine phenols are extremely sensitive to oxygen and are easily converted to brownish oxidation products accompanied by loss of nutritive values of the wine. Enzymatic oxidation takes place under the influence of polyphenoloxidases including tyrosinases and laccases. The latter are produced by the phytopathogenic fungus Botrytis cinerea and enter the must with contaminated berries. Although uncontrolled action of Botrytis-laccase has a dramatic impact on wine quality, the oxidative …

2018

Many animals protect themselves from predation with chemicals, both self-made or sequestered from their diet. The potential drivers of the diversity of these chemicals have been long studied, but our knowledge of these chemicals and their acquisition mode is heavily based on specialist herbivores that sequester their defenses. The wood tiger moth (Arctia plantaginis, Linnaeus, 1758) is a well-studied aposematic species, but the nature of its chemical defenses has not been fully described . Here, we report the presence of two methoxypyrazines, 2-sec-butyl-3-methoxypyrazine and 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, in the moths' defensive secretions. By raising larvae on an artificial diet, we confir…

The Odorant-Binding Proteins of the Spider Mite Tetranychus urticae

2021

Spider mites are one of the major agricultural pests, feeding on a large variety of plants. As a contribution to understanding chemical communication in these arthropods, we have characterized a recently discovered class of odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) in Tetranychus urticae. As in other species of Chelicerata, the four OBPs of T. urticae contain six conserved cysteines paired in a pattern (C1–C6, C2–C3, C4–C5) differing from that of insect counterparts (C1–C3, C2–C5, C4–C6). Proteomic analysis uncovered a second family of OBPs, including twelve members that are likely to be unique to T. urticae. A three-dimensional model of TurtOBP1, built on the recent X-ray structure of Varroa destruc…