Evidence for nest-odour recognition in two species of diving petrel

Abstract

SUMMARY In nearly every procellariiform species, the sense of smell appears to be highly adapted for foraging at sea, but the sense of smell among the diving petrels is enigmatic. These birds forage at considerable depth and are not attracted to odour cues at sea. However, several procellariiform species have recently been shown to relocate their nesting burrows by scent, suggesting that these birds use an olfactory signature to identify the home burrow. We wanted to know whether diving petrels use smell in this way. We tested the common diving petrel Pelecanoides urinatrix and the South-Georgian diving petrel Pelecanoides georgicus to determine whether diving petrels were able to recognise their burrow by scent alone. To verify the efficacy of the method, we also tested a bird that is known to use olfaction for foraging and nest recognition, the thin-billed prion Pachyptila belcheri. In two-choice T-maze trials, we found that, for all species,individuals significantly preferred the odour of their own nest material to that of a conspecific. Our findings strongly suggest that an individual-specific odour provides an olfactory signature that allows burrowing petrels to recognize their own burrow. Since this ability seems to be well developed in diving petrels, our data further implicate a novel adaptation for olfaction in these two species that have been presumed to lack a well-developed sense of smell.

King penguins can detect two odours associated with conspecifics

“…Many Procellariiform seabirds are able to home to their burrow using olfactory cues. Using Y-maze experiments it has been shown that many Procellariiforms significantly prefer an arm of a Y-maze associated with their own burrow scent over that of a conspecific (for example Bonadonna et al, 2003b). The burrow odours are probably composed of feces and feathers.…”

“…This should not be surprising, since the penguins' closest relatives, the Procellariiforms (Hackett et al, 2008), appear to use olfaction in a social context (e.g. Bonadonna and SanzAguilar, 2012) and in nest recognition (Bonadonna et al, 2003b), in addition to foraging (reviewed in Nevitt, 2008). Nevitt (1999) first introduced the concept of an olfactory landscape, suggesting that Procellariiform seabirds are able to locate productive areas of the ocean by orienting towards scented areas of high primary productivity.…”

Back home at night or out until morning? Nycthemeral variations in homing of anosmic Cory's shearwaters in a diurnal colony

“…All of these studies reported poorer or null homing performances of anosmic birds compared with controls, emphasizing the crucial role of a functional sense of smell for homing at night. In addition, a number of behavioural studies carried out with Y-maze choice tests demonstrated the capacity of different species of procellariiforms for distinguishing between their own and a conspecific's burrow only by odour, as if the burrows had an individual olfactory signature (Bonadonna et al, 2003a;Bonadonna et al, 2003b;Bonadonna et al, 2004).…”

Smelling Out Predators is Innate in Birds

“…At the intra-specific level, they are known to emit chemical compounds, which are important in several aspects of avian life histories (Caro & Balthazart 2010). For example, birds can recognize their nest using chemical cues (Mínguez 1997, O'Dwyer et al 2008, Bonadonna & Bretagnolle 2002, Bonadonna et al 2003a,b, 2004, de León et al 2003, Caspers & Krause 2011 and they are able to discriminate the scent of their partners from the scent of other conspecifics (Bonadonna & Nevitt 2004, Jouventin et al 2007. Therefore, chemical cues may play a role in social behaviour (Hagelin 2007).…”