Article
Chemical fingerprints encode mother-offspring similarity, colony membership, relatedness, and genetic quality in fur seals.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America - 8 Sept 2015
Stoffel Martin A, Caspers Barbara A, Forcada Jaume, Giannakara Athina, Baier Markus, Eberhart-Phillips Luke, Müller Caroline, Hoffman Joseph I
Abstract excerpt
Chemical communication underpins virtually all aspects of vertebrate social life, yet remains poorly understood because of its highly complex mechanistic basis. We therefore used chemical fingerprinting of skin swabs and genetic analysis to explore the chemical cues that may underlie mother-offspring recognition in colonially breeding Antarctic fur seals. By sampling mother-offspring pairs from two different...
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