Tube Nosed Seabird
Tube-nosed seabirds, like the Leach’s storm-petrel, have an excellent sense of smell, using it to find food on the open ocean and to navigate to a home burrow. Courtesy photo

The Scent of a Mate: Seabird Study Provides Insights into Sexual Selection

What scent attracts a seabird’s mate?

It’s a question on the mind of Professor Gabrielle Nevitt, Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior. An expert on the chemical senses of birds, Nevitt and members of her lab have been studying Leach’s storm-petrels (Oceanodroma leucohoa) for over 20 years with the goal of making the species a model for chemical ecology in birds.

For some animals, it’s known that individual odor is influenced by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC)—a group of genes critical for proper immune system function. Often, an animal will pick a mate with a dissimilar MHC from its own, the genetic variability increasing its offspring’s resistance to pathogens.

“We and others have shown that some species of petrels can recognize personal scents, and we wanted to better understand the molecular mechanisms that might be driving this ability in birds,” said Nevitt. “MHC has been shown to be involved with personal odor recognition in other organisms, so I thought the MHC was a logical starting point.”  

In a new study, funded by the National Science Foundation and appearing in Molecular Ecology, the team relay their findings on the role MHC plays in sexual selection in populations of Leach’s storm-petrels on Bon Portage Island in Nova Scotia, Canada. Sampling close to 2,000 adults and chicks, the researchers found males were less likely to mate with females of a specific MHC genotype. Like many other animals, they seemed to select mates with MHC genotypes different from their own.

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