Lipophilic Compounds from the Femoral Gland Secretions of Male Hungarian Green Lizards, Lacerta viridis

Kopena, Renáta; López, Pílar; Martı́n, José

doi:10.1515/znc-2009-5-622

Cited by 22 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 37 publications

(39 reference statements)

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“…Their main possible function in secretions might be to inhibit oxidation of other lipids in secretions (see Alberts, 1992), as it occurs in lacertid green lizard species inhabiting wet environments Kopena et al, 2009;Martín and López, 2010b).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the chemical composition of femoral gland secretions has been analysed in only a few lizard species (reviewed in Weldon et al, 2008). Most information relates to European lizards of the family Lacertidae (López and Martín, 2005b, c, 2006López, 2006b, c, 2010b;Gabirot el al., 2008;Kopena et al, 2009), American lizards of the families Iguanidae (Weldon et al, 1990;Alberts et al, 1992) and Liolaemidae (Escobar et al, 2001(Escobar et al, , 2003, and an African cordylid lizard (Louw et al, 2007). However, there are many lizard species within other taxonomic lineages and geographical areas that have femoral pores with abundant secretions, which have never been chemically analysed, in spite of secretions being often related to chemical communication (see reviews by Weldon et al, 2008;Mason and Parker, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Chemical Constituents of the Femoral Gland Secretions of Male Tegu Lizards (Tupinambis merianae) (Family Teiidae)

Martı́n

Chamut

Manes

et al. 2011

Zeitschrift Für Naturforschung C

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In spite of the importance of chemical signals (pheromones) in the reproductive behaviour of lizards, the chemical compounds secreted by their femoral glands, which may be used as sexual signals, are only known for a few lizard species. Based on mass spectra, obtained by GC-MS, we found 49 lipophilic compounds in femoral gland secretions of male tegu lizards (Tupinambis merianae) (fam. Teiidae), including a very high proportion of carboxylic acids and their esters ranging between n-C 8 and n-C 20 (mainly octadecanoic and 9,12-octadecadienoic acids), with much less proportions of steroids, tocopherol, aldehydes, and squalene. We discuss the potential function of these compounds in secretions, and compare the compounds found here with those documented for other lizard species.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical Constituents of the Femoral Gland Secretions of Male Tegu Lizards (Tupinambis merianae) (Family Teiidae)

Martı́n

Chamut

Manes

et al. 2011

Zeitschrift Für Naturforschung C

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“…Femoral (or precloacal or preanal) secretions of lizards are composed of proteins and many lipophilic compounds that may function as chemosignals Weldon et al, 2008). However, the specific chemical compounds found in secretions are only known for a few species, including several species of lacertids (Gabirot et al, 2008(Gabirot et al, , 2010aKhannoon et al, 2011aKhannoon et al, , 2011bKopena et al, 2009;López and Martín, 2005b, 2005cMartín and López, 2006c, 2006dMartín et al, 2013c), an African cordylid (Louw et al, 2007), an American teid , several iguanians (Alberts, 1990;Alberts et al, 1992aAlberts et al, , 1992bEscobar et al, 2001Escobar et al, , 2003Weldon et al, 1990), agamids (Chauhan, 1986;, gekkonids (Chauhan, 1986;Khannoon, 2012) and one amphisbaenian Martín, 2005d, 2009b). Among the lipophilic compounds secreted, steroids, fatty acids, alcohols, waxy esters, squalene, tocopherol, ketones and aldehydes are commonly found in different proportions (reviewed in Weldon et al, 2008).…”

Section: Sources and Characteristics Of Lizards' Chemosignalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…heightened immune response, lower parasite load) or higher "quality" (Kopena et al, 2009;López and Martín, 2005a;López et al, 2002bLópez et al, , 2003aMartín and López, 2000, 2006a, 2006b), a better body condition (Huyghe et al, 2012;Martín and López, 2010b) or of a higher genetic compatibility (i.e. inbreeding avoidance) (Olsson et al, 2003).…”

Section: Female Mate Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This relationship between diet and secretions is important because vitamin E is the main compound in secretions of green lizards (Kopena et al, 2009;, and females seem to prefer areas scent-marked by males with large proportions of vitamin E in secretions (Kopena et al, 2011), suggesting that this compound may function as a chemosignal probably indicating the quality of the male (i.e. the ability to obtain or select food of high quality) or his territory (i.e.…”

Section: Diet and Chemosignalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Condition-dependent chemosignals in reproductive behavior of lizards

Martı́n

López

2015

Hormones and Behavior

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This article is part of a Special Issue "Chemosignals and Reproduction". Many lizards have diverse glands that produce chemosignals used in intraspecific communication and that can have reproductive consequences. For example, information in chemosignals of male lizards can be used in intrasexual competition to identify and assess the fighting potential or dominance status of rival males either indirectly through territorial scent-marks or during agonistic encounters. Moreover, females of several lizard species "prefer" to establish or spend more time on areas scent-marked by males with compounds signaling a better health or body condition or a higher genetic compatibility, which can have consequences for their mating success and inter-sexual selection processes. We review here recent studies that suggest that the information content of chemosignals of lizards may be reliable because several physiological and endocrine processes would regulate the proportions of chemical compounds available for gland secretions. Because chemosignals are produced by the organism or come from the diet, they should reflect physiological changes, such as different hormonal levels (e.g. testosterone or corticosterone) or different health states (e.g. parasitic infections, immune response), and reflect the quality of the diet of an individual. More importantly, some compounds that may function as chemosignals also have other important functions in the organism (e.g. as antioxidants or regulating the immune system), so there could be trade-offs between allocating these compounds to attending physiological needs or to produce costly sexual "chemical ornaments". All these factors may contribute to maintain chemosignals as condition-dependent sexual signals, which can inform conspecifics on the characteristics and state of the sender and allow making behavioral decisions with reproductive consequences. To understand the evolution of chemical secretions of lizards as sexual signals and their relevance in reproduction, future studies should examine what information the signals are carrying, the physiological processes that can maintain the reliability of the message and how diverse behavioral responses to chemosignals may influence reproductive success.

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How to tackle chemical communication? Relative proportions versus semiquantitative determination of compounds in lizard chemical secretions

García‐Roa

Sáiz²,

Gómara³

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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Knowledge about chemical communication in some vertebrates is still relatively limited. Squamates are a glaring example of this, even when recent evidences indicate that scents are involved in social and sexual interactions. In lizards, where our understanding of chemical communication has considerably progressed in the last few years, many questions about chemical interactions remain unanswered. A potential reason for this is the inherent complexity and technical limitations that some methodologies embody when analyzing the compounds used to convey information. We provide here a straightforward procedure to analyze lizard chemical secretions based on gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry that uses an internal standard for the semiquantification of compounds. We compare the results of this method with those obtained by the traditional procedure of calculating relative proportions of compounds. For such purpose, we designed two experiments to investigate if these procedures allowed revealing changes in chemical secretions 1) when lizards received previously a vitamin dietary supplementation or 2) when the chemical secretions were exposed to high temperatures. Our results show that the procedure based on relative proportions is useful to describe the overall chemical profile, or changes in it, at population or species levels. On the other hand, the use of the procedure based on semiquantitative determination can be applied when the target of study is the variation in one or more particular compounds of the sample, as it has proved more accurate detecting quantitative variations in the secretions. This method would reveal new aspects produced by, for example, the effects of different physiological and climatic factors that the traditional method does not show.

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Lipophilic Compounds from the Femoral Gland Secretions of Male Hungarian Green Lizards, Lacerta viridis

Cited by 22 publications

References 37 publications

Chemical Constituents of the Femoral Gland Secretions of Male Tegu Lizards (Tupinambis merianae) (Family Teiidae)

Chemical Constituents of the Femoral Gland Secretions of Male Tegu Lizards (Tupinambis merianae) (Family Teiidae)

Condition-dependent chemosignals in reproductive behavior of lizards

How to tackle chemical communication? Relative proportions versus semiquantitative determination of compounds in lizard chemical secretions

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