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Rabbit behaviour research in Australia and its relevance in control operations
Research in Australia on the behaviour of wild rabbits has provided a basis for improvements in the tactics and strategy of control. As the warren is a central focus for growth and survival of a population, a program for effective control or eradication should aim at making the warren unavailable to rabbits. Enclosure studies of behaviour suggested that poisoning would be much more effective when carried out in the non-breeding season. This has been confirmed in field trials. The behavioural importance of the odour-producing inguinal, submandibular, and anal glands is emphasized. It is suggested that further studies of these glands may provide insights for the development of repellents or attractants
Scents of Adolescence: The Maturation of the Olfactory Phenotype in a Free-Ranging Mammal
Olfaction is an important sensory modality for mate recognition in many mammal species. Odorants provide information about the health status, genotype, dominance status and/or reproductive status. How and when odor profiles change during sexual maturation is, however often unclear, particularly in free-ranging mammals. Here, we investigated whether the wing sac odorant of male greater sac-winged bats (Saccopteryx bilineata, Emballonuridae) differs between young and adults, and thus offers information about sexual maturity to potential mating partners. Using gas chromatography – mass spectrometry, we found differences in the odorants of young and adult males prior and during, but not after the mating period. The wing sac odorant of adult males consists of several substances, such as Pyrocoll, 2,6,10-trimethyl-3-oxo-6,10-dodecadienolide, and a so far unidentified substance; all being absent in the odor profiles of juveniles prior to the mating season. During the mating season, these substances are present in most of the juvenile odorants, but still at lower quantities compared to the wing sac odorants of adults. These results suggest that the wing sac odorant of males encodes information about age and/or sexual maturity. Although female S. bilineata start to reproduce at the age of half a year, most males of the same age postpone the sexual maturation of their olfactory phenotype until after the first mating season
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